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Body donations surge in Japan amid changing views of death

17 Comments
By Reito Kaneko

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17 Comments
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This is great. It's always enjoyable to witness Japan embracing modernity.

6 ( +8 / -2 )

I'll bet that not all the people who are making the donations are doing so for purely altruistic reasons.

-1 ( +5 / -6 )

Yubaru, right. People are scared of funeral costs and/or having your body sit rotting in a lonely apartment

8 ( +10 / -2 )

I wonder just how many of these people have signed organ donor cards as well!

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Even If a body donor signed in paper of an university, no one comes to the apartment everyday to check he/she is alive or dead. If he/she is living alone, it is very possible that he/she would die suddenly and rot in lonely apartment for a while. If he/she have family, someone in family would do funeral after cremated body was returned from university.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

Let them use all the sex dolls in Japan.

-6 ( +1 / -7 )

My wife has talked about this. For her the main motivation is to spare (our son) the expense of a funeral.

8 ( +9 / -1 )

Scrote

I wondered the same thing. i.e. it's a nice way to avoid the ridiculous costs of a funeral in Japan.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

I was sure it was about costs for funeral.

Anyway, it seems science is also blocked by rules of the past if only doctors can do dissections.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

When my late wife died it was one of her requests that she would like to donate any body parts, unfortunately some previous weeks earlier she had a serious infection so most organ transplants were not be suitable, but her cornea were removed and transplanted, so I now know that 2-3 people now have improved or far better eye sight, so I believe that something good has come out of her death.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

@Brian: She only had two eyes so how can three people have benefited from her cornea donations?

I signed the back of my shigakukyosai card 26 years ago to donate my whole body. If nobody looks at the card, then my body goes to waste. We need a data bank.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

I would prefer that my body be placed in a pod as food for a tree to grow.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Yubaru, right. People are scared of funeral costs and/or having your body sit rotting in a lonely apartment

Donating a body to medical science does not mean you don't have a funeral. After they are finished with the body the university gives it back to the relatives to dispose of. You don't have to have a funeral anyway, you can just have a cremation with no ceremony - families often choose big funerals for the same reason they have unnecessarily big weddings - to show off how much money they have spent.

I have a donor card, both in the UK and Japan. When you're dead, that's it and you won't need my body any more.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

A friend here passed away and he had signed up to donate his body. There was still a funeral, though his wife chose one of the most simple ceremonies with few flowers or fanfare. The body was also cremated and returned recently; and although they are not going to put him into the family grave, donating the body does not proclude this part either.

Its more of a break between the funeral, and the receiving of the bones/ashes after cremation. Everything else is the same.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I guess when my time comes I will have nothing of value left for anyone, so my preference then, is to be returned to whence we came... the Sea. And whilst I'm on the subject People overrate Death - there is no after, just before - so make the best of what you have and hope the transition is quick and without either your anticipation or pain.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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