Can devout Muslims or Jews receive organ transplants from genetically-altered pigs?

Now biotech companies are raising genetically altered pigs to transplant their organs into patients whose own kidneys have failed. Experts in the field are only beginning to grapple with the question: Will Jews and Muslims accept a transplanted organ from a pig if it saves their lives?

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For Jews, the short answer is a clear and unequivocal yes. …

“It’s 100 percent permitted,” even for the most observant and Orthodox Jews, said Rabbi Pamela Barmash, a professor of Hebrew Bible and biblical Hebrew at Washington University in St. Louis.

Judaism teaches that in cases of life and death, the obligation to preserve life trumps all other religious commandments and obligations. 

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Muslims, too, believe in the sanctity of human life, and Islam offers doctrinal leeway if it means saving lives. Still, the bar for overcoming the pig taboo is higher.

Islam answers the question with questions: Is there a dire necessity? And is an alternative treatment available?

This is an excerpt. Read the original post here