RELIGION AND THE BODY IN MEDICAL-RESEARCH

Religious discussion of human organs and tissues has concentrated larg ely on donation for therapeutic purposes. The retrieval and use of hum an tissue samples in diagnostic, research, and education contexts have , by contrast, received very little direct theological attention. Init ially undertaken at the behest of the National Bioethics Advisory Comm ission, this essay seeks to explore the theological and religious ques tions embedded in nontherapeutic use of human tissue. It finds that th e ''donation paradigm'' typically invoked in religious discourse to ju stify uses of the body for therapeutic reasons is inadequate in the co ntext of nontherapeutic research, while the ''resource paradigm'' impl icit in scientific discourse presumes a reductionist account of the bo dy that runs contrary to important religious values about embodiment. The essay proposes a ''contribution paradigm'' that provides a religio us perspective within which research on human tissue can be both justi fied and limited.