MinorityView
17-12-09, 12:47 PM
I've got questions about the ethics, the general good (or bad) sense of doing these, the use of medical resources...
I'm currently reading a novel about a heart transplant, Irreplaceable by Stephen Lovely. Plus, my next door neighbor had a double lung transplant, I knew someone who had a kidney transplant, and someone I know online had her mother undergo a kidney transplant.
My neighbor is a delightful man, he is happy to be fairly functional again, but on the other hand his life hangs by a thread, he is dependent on daily doses of many, many drugs and he just spent the last week getting intensive medical care because something isn't going right.
So that is one piece.
Another piece is the description in the book of the woman who died having her organs "harvested" while on life support. How can this be done without the person involved being treated as a "thing" a collection of parts to be divided up and re-used? And is someone dead or alive in a situation like that? The spiritual questions really worry me.
Any thoughts?
I'm currently reading a novel about a heart transplant, Irreplaceable by Stephen Lovely. Plus, my next door neighbor had a double lung transplant, I knew someone who had a kidney transplant, and someone I know online had her mother undergo a kidney transplant.
My neighbor is a delightful man, he is happy to be fairly functional again, but on the other hand his life hangs by a thread, he is dependent on daily doses of many, many drugs and he just spent the last week getting intensive medical care because something isn't going right.
So that is one piece.
Another piece is the description in the book of the woman who died having her organs "harvested" while on life support. How can this be done without the person involved being treated as a "thing" a collection of parts to be divided up and re-used? And is someone dead or alive in a situation like that? The spiritual questions really worry me.
Any thoughts?