8/8/08; http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1009368.html
The ultra-Orthodox community has come up with a response to the growing popularity of Israel’s organ-donor cards, also known as Adi cards. The community has issued a new card called a “life card,” which expresses its holders’ wish not to donate organs. The new card states: “I do not give my permission to take from me, not in life or in death, any organ or part of my body for any purpose.” The initiative came after the organ-donor law regulating organ donations in compliance with Jewish law in cases of brain and respiratory death, was approved by the Knesset in March. Sources within the ultra-Orthodox community told Army Radio on Wednesday that organ donation cards were actually a “way of stealing organs from helpless people.”
See: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1009368.html
Top rabbis: Harvesting organs of the brain dead is `bloodshed`
Yair Ettinger and Yuval Azoulay; 21/3/08
Harvesting the organs of a patient who has been declared brain-dead but whose heart has not stopped is “shedding of blood” according to a statement released Wednesday by ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi rabbis. The statement came in response to the law passed by the Knesset earlier this week stating that brain and respiratory death were sufficient to declare the patient dead, making the patient a candidate for organ donation. The law is to go into effect within 14 months.
See: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/968865.html
