Could You Donate Your Face?

Anderson Cooper, from CNN, asked on his Blog, "Would you be willing to donate your face when you die?" This question arises in regard to the French woman, Isabelle Dinoire, who was the first recipient of a partial human face transplant. Isabelle was victimized by her pet dog and left mutilated with exposed bone on the vast majority of her face. Although she has the face of another person, Isabelle looks neither like the donor or her original self. In regard to the question, I'd make a guess that a majority of people could not donate their face, even those who would not hesitate to donate their internal organs. Two reasons why.

Foremost, we treasure our uniqueness in the world. While we generally have no qualms about our inner organs, our everyday appearances are special to us. Things like our eyes, face, or even our genitals are something that make us who are we are, and there is something a little unsettling when we think that those parts could be on or used by another human being. Its a selfish thought, but one a majority of us probably cant shake.

The second reason is one that I worry about most and that is the reaction of our surviving loved ones. I remember when I was just a kid, we received news that my Uncle Ernie was killed in a car accident. He was completely rolled over by a steel truck. He had a closed casket funeral for obvious reasons and as a child, It never seemed real. I never saw his body. I always thought that he would just show up at the next family function and he was just my Uncle. Imagine what his kids went through. They were devastated because their dad was taken from them and they never got the last goodbye. It's that "Last Goodbye" that people will have trouble with. Funeral services are for the living to give their last respects, not for the dead, but to come together and respect what life is. To take some of that away with a closed casket will be too much for some people.

That's not to say that these procedures wont happen, because they will. Cases like these are rare, so the lower number of donating parties probably wont impact the need to supply ratio. In the future, as technology permits, we are going to be dealing with more issues like these. Some are going to be personal issues, but as cloning and gene therapies get more commonplace, ethical theory will be brought to the forefront as well. Hopefully we will all see the greater good and swallow our pride, when we have to.