Body-Mind-Spirit and Medical Ethics
Posted on August 15, 2011
There’s an interesting intersection where Body-Mind-Spirit encounters medical technology. If we are a unified whole, and our bodies are not separate from our minds and spirits, then what about bionics? If we are part machine, are we still unified? What about organ transplantation? What about cloning? If we start to grow or clone human organs to replace failing ones, at what point do we lose our unification? It’s like the old joke about a man who is asked how long he’s owned an axe. “Oh, forty years”, the man says, “and I’ve only replaced the blade three times and the handle twice.”
Our scientific advancement, especially in medicine, has far outstripped our ability to determine what is ethical—whether we should do the things we can do. For example, today there is a vibrant and active organ donor system that saves many lives through transplants of donated kidneys, livers, and other organs. There is also a black market for organs donated by healthy poor people, for money. In China, organs are harvested from executed prisoners. There are instances of people being murdered for their organs. And, in the case of cloning, it is conceivable that a cloned human being could be created for the single purpose of replacing organs in the original human.
As you can see from these few examples, there are serious ethical questions surrounding the concepts of organ donation and cloning. Futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that by 2050 we will have solved all the medical issues that cause aging, and will be able to live indefinitely. But should we? Do we really want to live forever? If you believe as I do, that right now, today, our bodies, minds, and spirits are unified with Everything already, then we are immortal, and we are simply going through Change, inevitable change, as we evolve from “dust to dust”. But my teenage daughter put it in perspective for me: “Dad, you talk like that now, but what if it was your liver that was failing and they could grow you another one?”
I wouldn’t necessarily get that new liver, not because I would act on my principles, but because I really don’t know if that’s what I would want. Buddhists have a saying: “Even an ant treasures its life.” I treasure mine, and I also treasure the Buddhist idea of changing, and evolving, and experiencing the next stage of existence (or non-existence), whatever that might be.
Many of the people who might read this are, like my daughter, young enough that they may face these ethical dilemmas in real time, in real life.
If you needed a new organ, what would you do? How far would you go, what actions would you take, to stay alive?
Juliana Marie Ferrara brings it right home for me. If my daughter needed an organ in order to sustain her life, I would undoubtedly do anything and everything, including possibly illegal things, to help her. The bigger questions remain–as a society are we prepared to make these ethical decisions about who should get organs and who shouldn’t, and how should these programs work? Is it right that a wealthy person can buy a kidney or liver that a poorer person can’t afford? Are we going to clone ourselves for spare parts? What are the human rights of the clone in that scenario? This isn’t science fiction, it’s nearly on us, and as I wrote, there is a difference between what we can do and what we should do. This is the same dilemma that faced the men and women who worked on the first nuclear weapons, many of whom later became anti-nuclear activists. Thanks for your responses.