Social Justice in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic Faiths and its Implications on Donor Organ Allocation

Within only the last century, the introduction of organ transplantation has revolutionized medical practice and altered society’s perception of what constitutes life and death. At the same time, the procedure has engendered controversy regarding both the ethics of the procedure and the problem of how to address a shortage in donor organs. This thesis focuses on primarily the later issue of scarcity in the context of the Egyptian organ transplantation system, which has been implicated by some as being unjust due to the influence of ambiguous Islamic teachings. In order to examine the veracity of this statement, the ideal of social justice will be examined in both the Islamic and Judeo-Christian faiths, with the hopes to identify whether Islam holds a unique view of social justice compared to that of Judeo-Christianity that predisposes it to such unjust conditions. The premise that this thesis shall take is that the aforementioned criticism is heedless and that faith cannot solely be blamed for situations that are instead complex and multifaceted