Abstract

Transplantation is defined by the opponents of this practice as neo-cannibalism, medical cannibalism or modern cannibalism due to the strictly utilitarian treatment of human corpses. It is claimed that the human body is brought into the role of a resource, raw material for further processing. The capabilities offered by medicine have contributed to changing the system of human values: the perception and understanding of human corporality. After death, the human body should be surrounded by a special piety, but it is treated in a purely utilitarian way in order to retrieve its pieces for a transplant. Some even see in transplantation practice a connection with cannibalism. The purpose and motivation of both practices is the same: a person, to save their life, assimilates a particular element of the human body by means of a medical transplant, whereas a person who is forced to consume the human body also does so to save their life.