Clarity required on donor laws

The story of Faisal Hansh, the Sharjah schoolboy who needs an urgent cornea transplant to save what is left of his sight, highlights an important issue. Even if the 10-year-old’s family can raise the Dh38,000 for an eye operation, they still need a donor for the surgery to proceed.
This raises crucial questions, such as whether the UAE’s relatively recently adopted donor law covers minor organs. When the Ministry of Health revised donor laws in 2010, it allowed the transplant of organs from donors, whether live or dead, other than the relatives of the recipient. The same law enables a person to donate their kidney, liver, lungs and heart after death to a registered patient on a donor waiting list. But confusion remains about the status of minor organs.
Religiously speaking, there is no verse in the Quran that forbids organ donation. But the human body, whether living or dead, enjoys a special honour in Islam and there are limitations on what a person can or cannot do with their body. Scholastic opinion on this issue varies, with some saying organ donation is not permitted at all, while others differentiate between major and minor organs.
But the consensus that was reached by a range of scholars in a recent conference ruled that organ donation is religiously permissible under three conditions. First, it should not pose a risk to the donor’s life; second, it should be done only to save the other person’s life; and third, it should not be done for economic gain.
Faisal won’t die if he loses his sight so does not meet this test. But his life will be blighted if he does not receive the corneal transplants he needs. The revised law was designed to counter a burgeoning black market in illegal organ donations and to reflect the wishes of the many non-Muslim residents of the UAE, many of whom would like to register as donors. The absence of a national organ donation system, possibly identified on the donor’s Emirates ID card, and cases such as Faisal’s, show there remains work to be done to ensure this process is both fair and clear.

Source: The National