Organ Transplantation: Meanings and Realities
Stuart J. Youngner, Renee C. Fox, Laurence J. O'Connell
Synopsis
This thought-provoking book ponders the far-reaching connections of organ transplantation
to human experience. A collaboration among an exceptional group of scholars and physicians,
it explores matters of life and death, body and mind, psyche and soul, self and other.
Sponsored by the Chicago-based Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith, and Ethics,
the volume is the result of discussions among a group encompassing many religious and cultural
traditions and many fields of expertise: philosophy, art, religion, folklore, psychiatry,
anthropology, literature, history, social psychology, and surgery. Whether considering scientific
advances in organ transplantation and their implications for medical morality, ambiguous
images of organ transplantation in centuries of art and literature, and practices of organ
procurement, or the complex bonds that are forged between donors, recipients, and their
families, these essays carry our understanding beyond the typical scientific and pragmatic
issues raised in discussions of bioethics and public policy.
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