15 Morningside Road, Edinburgh EH10 4DP, Tel: 0131 447 6394 or 0774 298 4459
24 August 2004
Organisers: Scottish Council of Jewish Communities
Venue: Glasgow
SCHB participant: Dr. Calum MacKellar gave a presentation concerning the ethical issues relating to human transplantation.
The conference was started with Mr. Will Scott, a senior administrator from the Scottish Executive Health Department, giving a talk on the new legislation relating to human organs being proposed in Scotland. In this respect he explained why such new legislation was being considered.
Dr. Calum MacKellar then gave a presentation concerning the ethical issues relating to human transplantation in the UK and in Europe.
The final talk was given by Dr. Kenneth Collins who discusses the Jewish perspective concerning organ transplantation. In this respect he mentioned that the Jewish faith accepted the possibility of transplantation as long as the procedure saved human lives. However, there were problems with post-mortem examinations since the Jewish faith required that the body of a person who had died be buried within the first 24 hrs after death. In closing he also indicated that most rabbis condemned the creation of human embryos for research purposes but accepted, on the other hand, that early human embryos could be considered as only potential human person and not as persons as such.