Pope assails organ trade, warns on transplants

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict condemned the trade in human organs as an abomination and urged caution yesterday in removing organs for transplant from dying donors before death.

The pontiff told scientists and bioethicists meeting at the Pontifical Academy for Life that the worldwide illegal organ trade often made victims of innocent people, including children.

Buying and selling of human organs is a lucrative business for suppliers and countries that allow foreign "transplant tourists" to have operations they cannot get at home. Organs are often bought from peasants and sometimes harvested from condemned prisoners.

"Abuses in transplantation and organ trafficking, which often hit innocent people such as children . . . should be decisively condemned as abominations," he said.

Benedict called legal organ donation an act of love and said there were long waiting lists for vital organs to save lives. A few years before being elected pope, he said he carried a card identifying himself as an organ donor.

Science has helped to better determine the moment of death and scientists should push to make this even more precise, the pope said yesterday.