Decision-making and Folklore in the Matter of Life and Death: Brain Death, Organ Donation, and Miracle Narratives

Turkiye and the rest of the world have been experiencing insufficient cadaveric organ donations. Although Turkey laws regulating organ transplantation allow the harvest of organs from the brain-dead who donated their organs while they were alive, Turkish social norms prohibit physicians from applying the written procedures. Therefore, both verbal and written consent of the close relatives of the possible cadaveric donors must be obtained after the brain death is announced. The ambiguity of the concept of brain death, invented in the 50s, and the terminology of modern medicine limit people’s ability to comprehend the states of coma, vegetative life, and brain death. Even though cross-cultural studies verify that the most common reasons for reluctance in cadaveric organ donations are religious concerns, interviews with donors and refusers, who are the relatives of brain-death people, revealed that folklore transmitted to generations within the context of beliefs, rituals, social norms, and oral genres also affect the judgment of prospective donors. As will be discussed in this paper, miracle narratives are particularly referenced in rejecting the reality of brain death in the conducted interviews. This paper will explore how such narratives affect decision-making process of refusers concerning the death of one and the survival of another.