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Apart from the Gypsies and Japanese Shinto’s, officially and theoretically there are rarely any religious objections against organ donation1. However, both my primary and secondary research revealed that religious factors act as determinants of social attitudes towards organ donation, an important identity factor and a fundamental source of values.
The death of a loved one often raises spiritual and religious issues. When faced with the decision of organ donation during the trauma of death, a person’s belief system and religious position on the subject becomes very influential. Results from my quantitative questionnaire indicated that less than 10% of those surveyed were aware of their religion’s doctrine in relation to donation and 29% claimed that their religion did not support organ donation. This led me to question whether these results were encumbered by cultural stereotypes or whether they reflected socialised religious perceptions towards organ donation?
Through my research I discovered that beliefs and religious perceptions about the body are often formed through a persons’ religious tradition and its practices, values and mores. Because religion is thought, felt and acted out in social and cultural contexts, as a traditional agent of socialisation, religion influences many attitudes towards those issues relating to the body. In their mores, many religious traditions regard the body as intact, in some form, after death.2 As a result, organ procurement raises religious concerns about the relationship of physical and spiritual realms; implications for the afterlife; and moral imperatives regarding the body as a gift from God.
Although many of the subjects perceived their religion to be a barrier to organ donation because it interfered with their traditional beliefs, funeral rituals and life cycle: “The dead body has to remain whole because I believe the deceased go into the next world as a soul with the same body as we have now.” (Hindu female); others expressed sentiments from their belief systems which they believed supported organ donation, justifying the legitimacy of organ donation and its ethic and social value within the context of the humanitarian values of Islam and verses in the Qu’ran such as: “If anyone saves a person it will be as if he has saved the whole of humanity.” (Muslim male) In addition, the majority of Christian’s also supported organ donation claiming it was an “altruistic practice, which runs parallel to our beliefs.”
The main concern with a focused sampling methodology such as this one is that the focus groups, although broadly representative of the groups under study, ultimately give only a limited range of views, and don’t acknowledge other attitudes and their religious influences present in Australia’s multicultural society. Although these limitations must be noted, the reason for this selection of groups was due to the responses provided in the questionnaire.
Thus it can be concluded that there is a definite existence of religious influence, a collective and personal identity factor and a fundamental source of values, on social attitudes towards organ donation. However, the resulting attitudes are ultimately a reflection of an individuals’ interpretation of their beliefs. If we can accept this as a reflection of Australia’s wider population and its values, my results indicate that we truly are a multifaceted and diverse society, and due to our varying levels of socialisation, we portray fundamentally different attitudes towards important issues such as organ donation.
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