Assessing religious motivations for altruistic living kidney donation
Friday, October 13, 2023
5:00 PM – 6:15 PM ET
Location: Bristol (Third Floor)
For some, the desire to donate a kidney to a stranger is an expression of general spiritual values or teachings. More problematic are cases where the decision to donate is a result of specific religious messaging about organ donation on the part of a faith leader or peers in a faith community. Members of the religious group ‘Jesus Christians’, for example, have caused considerable controversy among transplant professionals by presenting en masse as prospective living donors. I will argue that, although such cases show that we have good reason to be cautious, religiously motivated organ donation is not in principle problematic even when it is the result of exposure to direct faith-based messaging. I present an ethical framework that transplant professionals can use to navigate offers of altruistic living kidney donation from candidates who are motivated by specific religious messaging. I then apply this framework to two use cases, first to the ‘Jesus Christians’, where it urges caution, and second to persons potentially influenced by a currently active North Texas ministry, Us For Them, which calls on Christians to “end the organ waiting list”.