by Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Ethical safeguards in medicine must be a priority:
Many of you know that my title refers to the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. A scene involves a cart being pushed along a town street to pick up corpses. One guy is grabbed and about to be tossed into the cart, but he calls out, “I’m not dead!” That was one of many funny bits in the film. For those not in the know, you can see the short scene here.
But what is NOT so funny is how today’s organ donation industry might not be all that different from what the movie depicted. While a blessing to so many, there have always been ethical issues arising here. Getting a life-saving kidney transplant or some such thing can give many extra years to the recipient.
And generally Christians have more or less accepted these new medical developments. Yes, some cults, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses even refuse blood transfusions, but that is the exception. Some people have died as a result of this. See more on that here.
But what happens to the notion of human personality and personhood if this goes full tilt? What happens for example if and when brain transplants become viable? Movies have already looked into this, such as the 2018 film Replicas starring Keanu Reeves. Indeed, older novels such as Mary Shelley’s 1818 book Frankenstein (and its 1931 film version) were already dealing with such matters.