Memorandum by Church of England Mission
and Public Affairs Division
INTRODUCTION
1. The terms of reference of the Church
of England's Mission and Public Affairs Unit require it to assist
in the Church in making a constructive and informed response to
issues facing contemporary society. The Unit reports to the Archbishops'
Council and, through it, to the General Synod, the Parliament
of the Church of England.
2. The Mission and Public Affairs Division
warmly welcomes the opportunity to respond to the House of Lord's
Committee's call for evidence on organ donation and transplantation.
In particular we would like our responses to be seen as addressing
your request to consider questions that may arise from a Faith-based
point of view, even though they also largely address the issues
raised in the first part of your call for evidence. We would like
to emphasise that Christian faith is a positive motivation for
organ donation and a powerful incentive for many people to donate.
CONSENT TO
ORGAN DONATION
3. For Christians, acts of mercy are a part
of the self-sacrifice that God requires of us. Christ is the paradigm
of self-giving. Giving oneself and one's possessions voluntarily
for the well being of others and without compulsion is a Christian
duty.
4. Christians have a mandate to heal, motivated
by compassion, mercy, knowledge and ability.
5. The Christian tradition both affirms
the God-given value of human bodily life, and the principle of
putting the needs of others before one's own needs. Organ donation
is a striking example of this.
6. Whether organ donation should be arranged
through an "opt-in" or an "opt-out" system
is not a question on which Christians hold a single set of views.
The opt-in system reflects our concern to celebrate and support
gracious gifts, freely given. The opt-out approach stresses Christian
concern for human solidarity and living sacrificially for others.
We are also concerned to understand moral questions like this
in their wider social and political context and, here, the undoubted
need for more organs to be donated for the healing of others has
to be weighed against the changed relationship between persons
and the State which moving to an opt-out system might entail.
COMMERCIAL ARRANGEMENTS
FOR ORGAN
TRANSPLANT
7. Selling organs for commercial gain would
never follow from a Christian ethic. It confuses the notion of
an organ as gift and turns it into a commodity.
LIVING DONORS
8. However, altruistic organ donation from
a living donor would flow from a Christian ethic, provided there
was no coercion, no commercial gain, and above all no harm to
the living donor. That the organ might go anonymously to a recipient,
unknown and unrelated to the donor, only heightens the self-giving
of the donor.
PUBLIC AWARENESS
9. If the present opt-in system is to continue,
it will need to be backed by a properly resourced programme of
public awareness-building and education.
RESPECT FOR
THE DEAD
10. Our experience as pastors at the time
of the Bristol and Alder Hey enquiries has shown us that the body
is crucially important to bereaved parents and friends. There
were numerous requests for burial services for body parts of children
that had already been buried. The body is to be respected and
the continuity between life and death in the form of what is done
with the body matters. The body at its burial or cremation should
ideally be recognizably the body of the person who has died.
11. However, though body parts must always
be treated reverently, they should not be mistaken for the person
him or herself. The reverence is perhaps expressed best in the
use of body parts only and always for healing others. The harvesting
of organs should not be such as to violate this continuity or
to cause unnecessary distress to the mourners.
12. It is extremely important to be clear
about the point of death, particularly when there is a pressure
to maintain organs in a healthy state before harvesting them.
This, again, is of vital importance to the bereaved.
EUROPEAN-WIDE
ORGANIZATION OF
TRANSPLANT SERVICES
13. We welcome the potential for Europe-wide
organization of organ transplant services if a just system can
be devised: member states will need to ensure that there is a
balance between the organs they can provide and those their citizens
need for transplant, otherwise some nations will be jeopardized
and worse off than hitherto. For example, all member states would
need to adopt the same opt-out or opt-in approach to consent for
organ donation.
4 October 2007
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