The Influence of Religious Beliefs on the Establishment of Criteria for Human Death in the Context of Transplantology Considerations. A Comparative Study: United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Poland

Abstract

Over the past few years, the problems of conscientious objection have mostly concerned abortion, but with the development of medicine, the spread of medical devices and the introduction of changes in the field of diagnostics of human death, it’s connection with thanatology was noticed at the end of the 20^th century.

As a consequence of scientific considerations, it has been concluded that the cessation of brain stem function decides on the death of the patient, therefore the criterion of “cerebral death” was given priority over the criterion of cardio-respiratory. Legally, many countries in the world have adopted a new regulation, but this does not change the fact that in the last 9 years some doctors from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia continue to raise concerns. They believe that the criterion of cerebral death proclaimed by the Harvard Committee in 1968 is not permanent and irreversible, and therefore cannot determine the death of a human being. From the medical point of view, death is a dissociated process, so the subject cannot be limited to the diagnosis of the cessation of work of one organ – the brain.

For this reason, according to Mohamed Y. Rady and Joseph L. Verheijde, Muslim doctors invoke the principle of the conscience clause. These situations occur particularly during transplants, which is why in this article I intend to explain why religious beliefs have a significant impact on the establishment of criteria for the death of human beings, sometimes causing strong resistance on the part of society against not only accepting brain death, but also popularising transplants. I will present this problem on the example of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Poland.