Remember reading last week about the corruption scandal that broke out in New Jersey involving synagogue raids and black market organs? The amusing high jinks that emerged from the story (one culprit hid $97,000 in an Apple Jacks box- clever!) made the whole ordeal sound like a Hollywood movie script.
The part that caught our attention the most was the arrest of several rabbis, who were allegedly trafficking human organs. Here, Slate Magazine’s Benyamin Cohen weighs in on the issue of Jewish traditions and organ donations, adding some interesting perspective to the strange story:
The rabbis’ organ trafficking was only one of their many indiscretions. In addition to being against the law, it raises a complex bioethical issue for Jews, one laced in a culture of moral imperatives. Is illegally buying an organ really wrong if it’s saving someone’s life? Is paying for altruism, by definition, counterintuitive? Jews have been battling this quandary for a long time, especially when you consider how little they themselves actually help the cause of transplantation.