LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (CNN) -- A team of surgeons has performed the first hand transplant in the United States, attaching a donor hand, wrist and portion of a forearm to a 37-year-old man.
"there are many doctors who, technically, could perform the surgery,
but are held back by ethical complications."
<sigh>
"In September in Lyon, France, a team doctors transplanted a donor hand
to a 48- year-old New England man in a 13-hour surgery.
The procedure has raised questions from medical ethicists and some
surgeons who question whether a non-vital body part such as a hand
should be transplanted."
So these people will tell you that it's OK to remain quadriplegic, because the alternative will challenge their ethical prejudices, even if the parts are available, and you are ready to pay for the procedure? Somebody should start tearing their non-essential body parts off - maybe it'll help these people change their [non-essential] minds...
See story at
http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9901/25/hand.transplant.02/
Also I would use the opportunity to remind of a little proposal for the
"Mutual Organ Donation Society" that I suggested awhile ago:
<http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/articles/OrganDonation.txt>