CAIRO: In a meeting with the health committee of the People’s Assembly Grand Mufti Aly Gomaa issued a fatwa permitting human organ transfer from the dead to the living.
A draft law regulating the process was shelved for years awaiting a clear cut opinion about permissibility and morality of organ transplant.
The meeting of the Grand Mufti was the first step the parliament took to reach an end to the controversy.
Minister of Health Hatem El Gabaly welcomed Gomaa’s fatwa expressing a wish that the parliament would agree on a law regulating the process soon.
“Without a law there is no social justice, because only the rich can afford the treatment while the poor can’t, said El Gabaly. “And that isn’t acceptable.
The continuous delay in discussing the law is due to controversy related to several issues.
While some have religious reservations, others are worried about the definition of “brain dead , under which a person would be eligible as an organ donor. Another group is worried that the poor would be exploited.
Those with religious reservations argue that God created man and thus owns human organs, and so man does not have the right to give what he does not own.
