[Disgruntled Intern]

And yet there are plenty of religions that forbid ending a life to save a life.

There's quite a lot of discussion within Judaism about donating organs. The general halachic viewpoint is that death is counted from respiratory failure, not from brain death. Organ donation is allowed as long as the extraction of organs is not the actual cause of death; thus, in general, most organs are allowed to be donated, but not the heart.

Fucking jews. Ha.

I don't really get how a religion can see fit to impose their definition of when a person is dead onto their followers. Surely this is evidentially a purely medical issue?

This.