The Transplant
The whole idea of face transplant surgery is eerie, and it got off to an even eerier start with last month's first successful one:
Among the most disturbing aspects of the debate are conflicting reports from doctors about whether the transplant was the result of two suicide attempts, one successful by the donor, and one failed by the recipient.
If Ms. Dinoire's disfigurement resulted from an attempted suicide, it would raise questions about her emotional stability and her ability to consent to such a risky operation.
Reports that the donor committed suicide also have implications for Ms. Dinoire's future, because if true, and if the transplant is successful, it would mean that for the rest of her life, she would see in the mirror the nose, mouth and chin of a woman who herself met a brutal end.
From an article I wrote earlier about plastic surgery in general and face transplants in particular:
Cosmetic surgery is increasingly prevalent: nose jobs, facelifts, tummy tucks, Botox injections for wrinkles, liposuction, and even cosmetic surgery for feet so they will better fit into designer shoes.
Why? Do we really want to look like Michael Jackson? Or, more precisely, do we really want to be like Michael Jackson?
With science moving forward at steady breakneck speed, it could be a scary culture. We are, in fact, at the doorway of something that sounds like a page out of Mary Shelley: Face transplants. Just as Frankenstein was assembled from bits of dead bodies that his creator found in charnel houses, technology is nearing the point where it will be able to take faces from the dead and dying and place them over the living's faces. It's meant to help people with disfigurements or whose facial nerve endings render their faces expressionless. But just as Viagra was originally concocted to help people with low blood pressure, I assume it won't be long until the face transplant becomes available for less-salutary goals.
If a rich, old woman wants to pay outrageous sums for the face of a dying youth, are we prepared to say no? Are we at least willing to disapprove? What if the youth's family needs the money?
Those are difficult ethical questions.
And the questions become even more difficult to answer intelligently in a culture where unreal beauty and perfection are presented as real and admirable.
Such a presentation, after all, is distortion, and distortion is madness.
And madness makes it very difficult to think.
