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Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!dave
From: dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Re: Baboon heart in a Human!
Message-ID: <420@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 6-Nov-84 19:50:59 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.420
Posted: Tue Nov  6 19:50:59 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 6-Nov-84 20:16:27 EST
References: <290@pecosdg.UUCP> <5579@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Reply-To: dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman)
Distribution: net
Organization: The Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 21

Where is this going to lead?

I have no problem with the recent transplant of the baboon's heart
into Baby Fae. Obviously, Baby Fae is still a human being, just as
if she had been given a plastic heart.

But now that medical science has crossed this barrier, where
will it stop? Where should it stop?

Consider: X is severely injured in a car accident, and is completely
paralysed from the neck down. He is offered the choice of life in
a wheelchair, with only his facial muscles to control things, or
the transplant of a baboon's body. He chooses the baboon, and we
have a human head on a baboon's body. Is it human? Does the brain
alone make it human? Should a doctor perform this kind of operation,
if it's what X wants?

Dave Sherman
Toronto
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