The Real Ethical Issues behind the First Face Transplant

Earlier this week in France a 38-year-old woman underwent the world’s first partial face transplant. The CNN.com article Face transplant woman thanks team recounts this amazing medical feat. Of all the ensuing controversy, none of it has dealt with the true issue surrounding this surgery. CNN.com reports, “The donor tissue came from a woman who had been declared brain-dead, with the permission of that woman’s family, doctors said.” This surgery has ushered in a new age in human history, the birth of the Human Commodity.

The Human Commodity is nothing new; black-market organ sales have occurred for a long time and recently embryos have been used as a source for stem cells used in research. What this event represents is the normalizing of the abnormal that occurs due to ecumenism within the monoculture. From the normalizing of homosexuality into merely another alternative lifestyle to the “Dutch Cure,” the monoculture embraces and normalizes the most abhorrent and base behavior.

The issue is that the “donor tissue,” a female face, was removed from a living human being and surgically transplanted onto another. In the September/October 2005 issue of Foreign Policy Peter Singer writes, “During the next 35 years, the traditional view of the sanctity of human life will collapse under pressure from scientific, technological, and demographic developments.” He goes on to assert that, “Hence, a decision to remove the feeding tube will be less controversial, for it will be a decision to end the life of a human body, but not of a person.” Singer believes that being alive does not necessarily constitute being a person and thus believes that there is a difference in killing a body and a person. The sanctity of human life is already collapsing and has already collapsed to the point that the organs of a living woman are now a harvestable commodity, with her family’s permission of course. According to the ecumenical monoculture, you are no longer a person you are a commodity, and your life has no intrinsic value.

Why should you stand against the ecumenical monoculture? Part 4

The Ecumenical Monoculture is Exclusive Part 3
This is a continuation of the illustration laid forth in the previous post.
Catholicism
“[The Church] does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence’.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 82.) Within postmodernism there can be no certainty about truth; all truth is relative, situated, and constructed.
“The Pope enjoys, by divine institution, supreme, full, immediate, and universal power in the care of souls” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 937)
‘For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 882) The ecumenical monoculture cannot tolerate the absolute and universal power described within the two previous statements. Such absolute and universal statements are seen as intolerant and reprehensible by the monoculture. The ecumenical monoculture will not tolerate the Catholic Church.
Hinduism
Hinduism is one of the most inclusive religions in the world. While it is based upon the revealed knowledge of the Vedas, it embraces numerous religious traditions and is divided into several diverse sects. Despite its various sects one thing is true for all Hindus they believe that all humans are reincarnated until their good actions are so plentiful that they are released from the cycle of reincarnation and become apart of a universal spirit. With 98% of all Hindus, living on the Indian subcontinent it is unlikely that the ecumenical monoculture will ever oppose Hinduism. Postmodernists, however, should oppose the universal claim that all humanity is trapped in the cycle of reincarnation, because it makes a universal claim.
Islam
The Shahada, one of the five pillars of Islam, reads as follows: “La ilaha il Allah, Muhammad -ur-Rasool-Allah” (There is no true God except Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.). The Shahada clearly places the Muslim truth claim in a position of superiority above all other truth claims and in his article, Shanafelt states that, “It is only when that faith is asserted as a superior form of truth beyond all others that others must object (1).” The monoculture views the exclusive claim made in the Shahada, and subsequently the Koran, as intolerant and the ecumenical monoculture will not tolerate Islam.
Judaism
Judaism is monotheistic and this will not be tolerated by the pantheistic ecumenical monoculture.