Investigating possession of human blood as a property in Iran's law with regard to legal and Islamic jurisprudential commentaries on organ transplant

• Author: Mohsen Dorrani/Abbas Taghvaee
• Pages: 376-383

Investigating posses sion of human blood as a property in Iran’s law

with regard to legal and Islamic jurisprudential commentaries on organ

transplant

Mohsen DORRANI

1

Abbas TAGHVAEE

2

Abstrac t

A qu estion th at most of jurists are faced with is, wheth er human blo od is basical ly

a p roperty or not an d is hu man the own er of his b lood? Moreover, what is the difference

betwee n blood an d other organ s of the bo dy from the vie wpoint of owne rship? If blood is a

propert y, why human i s not th e owner? Unlik e blood, t here have bee n legal discu ssions on

organ sale, where blood can be retrieved by the b ody whi le segrega ted organ s are no t

retrieva ble by the bod y. Investiga ting various view s abou t ownership o f organs o f the bod y,

one can conclude t hat blood is a property o wned by human s.

Keyword s: organ transp lant, human bloo d, property , possession, prop rietorship o f

bloo d.

JEL Cla ssification: K11, K32

1. Introduction

Recently, with the accelerated flow of medicine on organ transplant and

blood transfusion, some issues are raised between jurists including:

Whether the blood is a property or not?

Can anyone imagine proprietorship for human blood?

If blood is a property, why human is not its owner?

It is evident that with accurate answers to the aforementioned questions,

the act of blood sale can be legalized under the legal forms of transaction.

Otherwise, the ongoing controversial debate of juridical-legal comments on the

sale of human organ will cause the undeniable fact of blood sale to remain legally

ambiguous. Concerning the legal and Islamic jurisprudential commentaries on

organ sale, the present article investigates property and proprietorship of human

blood with analysis of verses from the Holy Quran and viewpoints of different

jurists.

1

M ohsen Dorrani - Department of Law, Bandar Abbas Branch, Islamic Az ad U niversity, Iran,

dorrani33@gmail.com

2

Abbas Taghvaee - Department of Islamic Teachings, Lahijan Branch, Islamic A zad University,

Lahijan, Iran, taghvaee.abbas@yahoo.com