The completion of the first successful face transplant on a woman in France has sparked ethical concerns in the medical field regarding this cutting edge procedure becoming mainstream. The woman suffered severely disfiguring injuries when a dog attacked her last year, prompting her doctors to entertain the idea of a lip, nose and chin facial transplant.
The success of the difficult procedure has received kudos and skepticism from the two sides of the medical field, one emphasizing the necessity of the procedure, and the other concerned about the moral aspect.
Currently, the face transplant procedure is only being used for victims who have suffered severely disfiguring injuries such as burns, cancer and attacks. However, many doctors fear that the face transplant procedure will run the gauntlet of misuse in the field of plastic surgery and become desired for cosmetic purposes.
Conflicting opinions emphasize the groundbreaking progress that the procedure has achieved by enabling acutely injured people whose lives have been forever altered to return to a normal life.
The face transplant procedure is not without substantial risk. In addition to risk of surgical complications, a patient who undergoes this surgery will require immunosuppressant drugs for the duration of their lives, increasing their risk of cancer.
Concerns of cosmetic misuse of the face transplant procedure and the associated health risks are not the only reservations of opposing doctors; there is also a serious moral dilemma involved. In order for a patient to successfully receive a face transplant from an organ donor, the donor must still be alive when the face is removed. Those opposed to the procedure are wondering if it is reasonable to expect a family member of a terminally comatose or dying relative to endure the extra hardship of having the face removed while they are still alive.
The face transplanted, which has already been a topic of controversy in the medical field in the United States for several years, will indefinitely continue to elicit moral debates of reasonable standards for the procedure.