Slashdot Mirror
Surgeon Says Face Transplants a Reality
Aspherical Cow writes "A New York Times Magazine article about how a London surgeon is planning on performing an experimental full-face transplant. The face would be harvested like any other donor organ and used on a disfigured person. Lots of issues of identity come up with something like this, but they say that this won't turn Nicholas Cage into John Travolta."
Maybe now people like Jacqueline Saburido can have their lives restored to them.
Oh, FP?
"It seams every day, medical technology is weakening the race more and more by causing people to depend on a large infrastructure to survive. At what point do you draw the line between leaving people out in the cold for the greater good or helping them?"
...
This is an incredibly specious argument. Seriously, put a little thought into it.
OK, now that we've determined that you aren't willing to put thought into it, I'll do it for you. Why do we have such a long lifespan and low infant mortality rate nowadays? Modern medicine. Are you saying that we should drop this entirely, just so in one million years we might be slightly more likely to mate (in a 20 year life span, with no way of caring for the infants) than we are now (assuming same conditions)?
The greater good would be far, far worse if it weren't for this "large infrastructure". You're using the same argument anarchists use, that we shouldn't rely on a large infrastructure to live. Of course, if we get rid of the large infrastructure, we die, but at least we're independant!
The underlying skeleton and musculature of a face is just as important as the skin. Someone with a square jaw will still have it, even if the translpanted face didn't... Someone who is perpetually angry will still look angry even if the donor was not...
From the article: 'But what we're proposing is taking the skin envelope with or without some muscle. So if I were to transplant my face onto you, it would look much more like you than me, because the skin envelope is elastic. It would redrape around your bone and cartilage structure.
The only way to truly get someone else's face on your body would be to transplant the entire head.
First, that water went over the bridge with the invention of the bandage. We are by nature the animal that defies Nature through the use of technology.
By definition, our medical tools are part and parcel of the evolutionary process. Would you say that the birds are "cheating" because they used wings? Or that the lungfish were cheating by getting their oxygen straight from the atmosphere?
Second, we're not thwarting evolution. We're giving the victims their life back after accidents that Nature never intended. At what point did the Discover channel do a special on "the Drunk Driver's Place in the Ecosystem?" And what natural defense do you propose we evolve to counter this risk? Adamantium skeletons?
Third, if you've personally ever received any sort of serious medical intervention, then you're a raging hypocrite. An injection of any kind qualifies as "serious intervention." If you haven't received any serious medical attention, then you're either very young or rather sheltered. My guess would be both.
Last, and this is the point I really want to make, WHAT KIND OF FREAKISHLY UNFEELING JACKASS ARE YOU THAT THIS THOUGHT WOULD EVEN ENTER YOUR HEAD? Most of the candidates for this surgery are burn victims who survived a perfect glimpse of Hell, only to discover that young children run screaming from them in terror now, that even their families flinch before touching them.
Your job here is to sit down, shut up, applaud the surgeons who are dedicating their lives to alleviating suffering, and pray that nothing ever happens to you that would make you too terrified to look in the mirror.
Although, after a post like that, I would hope you'd avoid mirrors for a while anyway out of decent sense of shame.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
This retard has no right to live.
Every human being has the right to live. and every human being made mistakes.
To kill a person just because he killed someone, or destroied someone's life, is revenge, not justice.
You may well be right on that, but is imposing the penalty on a white justice when the penalty isn't really justifiable?
Remember, equality means treating everyone equally, and as a non-white this is exactly what I want. Discrimination that favours non-whites will breed resentment among whites, and I wouldn't blame them one bit for that.
Oh by the way, fuck political correctness
Cheers,
CD
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