Topic:  Tissues, Organs and Cadavers

Source of this posting: Moderator response

Date originally posted: June 30, 2005

Moderator who originally posted this source: Kathy Martyn

Question: I would like to donate my body to science but i am not clear on the church teachings about this. could you please enlighten me ?

Answer: 

Hi and thank you for your question. The simple answer is yes. The Catholic Church has taught that it is ethical and even laudable to donate one's body for scientific research if a true need exists.

Pope Pius XII, in his May 14, 1956, allocution to a group of eye specialists, suggested that "The public must be educated. It must be explained with intelligence and respect that to consent explicitly or tacitly to serious damage to the integrity of the corpse in the interest of those who are suffering, is no violation of the reverence due to the dead."

However, the issue of product research raises another and far thornier question.

Common sensibility indicates that since the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and since humans live in communion with one another, utilitarian or financial gain is an insufficient basis for donation of organs from a live donor or a cadaver. Rather, the donor should be motivated by generosity, charity and the common good.

While Church teaching does not expressly address product research, one can infer from several Catholic documents that the sale of organs or tissue violates the fiduciary relationship between the individual and caregiver as well as the dignity of the human body. It reduces what can be a laudable act into something that is crassly materialistic and utilitarian.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks about the free gift of organs after death as legitimate and potentially meritorious. Furthermore, the Pontifical Academy for Life, in its "Concluding Communiqué on the Ethics of Biomedical Research for a Christian Vision" on February 26, 2003, recognizes that science and technology can be used for good or for evil ends.

The academy therefore cautions that research be directed toward the "true common good" rather than toward private interest.