Article November 3, 1986 Issue

Healing the body: transplant or transform?

The Christian Science Monitor

Transferring organs from one body to another is in some cases already quite common. Healthy kidneys or hearts are being substituted for their injured or diseased counterparts with greater frequency than ever before.

Thus the question "Can the transplantation of vital organs be done?" has obviously been answered. Yet there remain other questions—questions of deep significance to our quest for greater understanding of what man really is.

For instance, should identity be treated as nothing more than a fleshly organism? Should mere physical rearrangement be allowed to determine the prospects for one's life, a life that, in itself, attests to more than physicality? Can a change in body organs actually bring regeneration or satisfy one's longings for a more moral and spiritual existence? Is life at the mercy of the material conditions of the body? Must intelligence be made the servant of non-intelligence?

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