Re: MED: "Frankenstein fears after head transplant"

From: John Marlow (johnmarlow@gmx.net)
Date: Sun Apr 08 2001 - 21:20:22 MDT


Why lose all of them?
Because physicians, religious organizations, legislators, Luddites
and assorted do-gooders are going to make it impossible to proceed
legally in the United States, even if the brain-dead's next of kin
give the go-ahead--which is extraordinarily unlikely. This isn't like
giving the thumbs-up to organ retrieval--this is the whole BODY, and
it will be perceived as a different thing altogether.

Suppose, for example, someone signs off on the donor thing for a
fresh corpse--only to learn later that the corpse is walking around
with someone else's head attached. suppose further that they sue,
saying "I didn't sign off on this; I want the body cremated."

jm

On 8 Apr 2001, at 19:36, Spike Jones wrote:

> > spike66@attglobal.net writes:
> >
> > << So start with a paralysed patient, such as Stephen Hawking...
> >
> > Spudboy100@aol.com wrote:...doctor's operation, leaves Hawking with
> > even less movement and sensation then he currently has with his ALS
> > afflcition? Not to mention even less quality of life. If we are talking
> > genuine neuro-genin treatments, or neural prothesis, that is a completely
> > different story! But that is not what the "head" doctor is proposing. Mitch
>
> So lets find a paralysed patient with lung cancer and a burning
> desire to live. Any quality of life is better than no life, assuming
> the patient can voluntarily end it at will. This is a big world with
> a lotta people. Motorcycles and drugs have given us a tragically
> large supply of healthy young bodies with dead brains, and an
> equally large supply of paralysed patients with a good brain
> and a failing paralysed body. Why lose all of em? spike
>
>

John Marlow



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