Organ Donation As Synergy: Ethical and Spiritual Aspects

Abstract

The article presents the ethical and spiritual aspects of understanding donation as an act of giving or sacrifice in the context of modern transplantologypractice. Medical care related to organ donation and transplantation occupies a unique position: it is in this area that a deep and comprehensive discussion of ethical and moral (spiritual) issues is needed, as well as the formation of a field of mutual communication. Doctors, patients, donors and their family members face a major dilemma when it comes to transplanting vital organs, which are culturally endowed with important personal, spiritual and symbolic meaning. For example, a heart transplant is the replacement of a diseased organ that can no longer ensure normal human life with a healthy heart taken from another person. On the other hand, it is the transplantation of an organ that was the center of one person’s spiritual life to another person who is symbolically deprived of such a center. In the context of the statistical data that researchers obtain when studying the influence of the religious factor on the understanding and ethical interpretation of the practices of transplantation of vital organs in countries around the world, the symbolic image of donation as synergy can become the key to verbalizing those internal attitudes that are latently present in spiritual culture and are capable of giving impetus to such development of biomedical discussions that will be in harmony and consonance with religious teachings.