Latino Religious Beliefs Hinder Organ Donation

Here’s a statistic that makes cultural sense: “Hispanics, especially first- and second-generation Mexican-Americans, are less likely to donate organs than Americans as a whole, according to organ donation experts.”

The quote is from a Reuters report about how Latinos lag behind the national average in organ donation, mainly because of tightly held religious beliefs.

“We find that the Hispanic community tells us, ‘My religion says not to donate,’ and ‘I can’t have an open casket because the body will be damaged,'” said Esmeralda Perez of the Texas Organ Sharing Alliance.

“They feel that their loved one will be disfigured, or the person will not be able to get into heaven because their body will not be whole.”

The overall rate of organ donation is 26 per million residents, in South Texas, a predominantly Mexican-American part of the country, donations are 19 per million. Organ donation advocates have been working to dispel those religious myths, but that message many times sounds self-serving. The Catholic Church should be leading this attitude-changing campaign, and so far they’ve been willing partners.

Rev. John Leies, a prominent Catholic theologian, said the church is working to convince the faithful that organ donation does not render the body unfit for the afterlife.

“The church is well aware that there are so may people waiting for organs, and there are not enough to be supplied and people die without receiving their organs,” he said. “It is difficult to fight against these cultural ideas, and maybe the church hasn’t made a good enough effort.”

Interestingly, 45 percent of the people on the national waiting list to receive organs are Latinos.

Follow Victor Landa on Twitter: @vlanda
[Photo courtesy My Organ Donation]