Medical recourse to organ transplants and the transfer of other material from the body of one person to that of another has increased steadily over the past few decades. This raises new legal questions, and brings once-thought purely academic questions to the forefront.
Organs and other material used for transplants can either be taken from a living person (for example, bone marrow, sperm, or blood); or from a corpse, as is the case with most transplants. Certain material, in particular kidneys, can be taken from both. In Israeli law, this duality in the sources of supply is paralleled by different sources of regulation. With respect to a corpse, the Anatomy and Pathology Law attempts to solve the main problems from a practical point of view. On the other hand, the Israeli legislator has as yet to intervene with respect to the living body.