Jews And Muslims Succeed In Bid to Avoid Post-Mortems

April 22, 2009

Author: Jerome Taylor

Source: The Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/jews-and-muslims-succeed-in-bid-to-avoid-postmortems-1672110.html

Bereaved families will be allowed to pay for pathologists to perform body scans on their loved ones to establish cause of death if they object to post-mortems for religious reasons, the Government announced yesterday.

Jewish and Muslim groups have been pressing for a change in the law which would replace surgical post-mortems with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. Both Islam and Judaism emphasise the sanctity of the body after death. Both religions request that a body should be prepared by the family, washed and buried as soon as possible.