# About Face: The Ethics Of Face Transplants **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 1, 2005, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-face-the-ethics-of-face-transplants/333489 "2005-12-01T01:13:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-face-the-ethics-of-face-transplants/333489/1 "2005-12-01T01:13:01Z")
> [@](#): > > The world’s first face transplant > > SURGEONS announced the world’s first face transplant yesterday. A French woman who had been disfigured in a dog attack received a new nose, lips and chin from a donor. The operation reopened a debate on the ethics of facial transplants, which can be psychologically difficult for the patient. > > (…) > > Many ethicists are anxious about the psychological impact of a failed transplant, and there are concerns about how a patient would cope with a new appearance. Contrary to the impression given in the movie _Face/Off_, in which the stars, John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, swap appearances, the recipient of a face transplant would not bear a close resemblance to the donor. > > In Britain, word that the first partial transplant had taken place received a mixed reception. It was widely hailed as a medical breakthrough. However, serious concerns about the implications were raised. > > (…) > > A consultant facial surgeon, Iain Hutchison, chief executive of Saving Faces — the Facial Surgery Research Foundation, said: “All medical advances are to be celebrated, but this operation throws up many moral and ethical issues. The recipient chose to take the risk of the operation failing. She could be back to square one without a face, needing further reconstruction operations.” > > Brendan Eley, the chief executive of The Healing Foundation, described facial transplantation as “exciting and fast developing” but called for further research before it is allowed in Britain. > > Stephen J. Wigmore, the chair of ethics at the British Transplantation Society, said: “Facial appearance is closely associated with an individual’s sense of personal identity. The recipient of a face must adapt to this new identity as well as to other people’s responses to it.” > > [Times Online](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1898385,00.html) The main issue seems to be how we handle looking in a morrir and seeing someone staring back at us. That might be unnerving, but I think that if my choice was getting used to the horribly disfigured face caused by a dog attack (which is what happened to the woman in the story) or getting used to looking like someone else who was not horribly disfigured that I would choose the operation. I can see more potential problems for this operation on an adult who was born with some the facial deformities since the person in question will have lived their whole life with the disfigurement. How that person sees him or herself would be more ingrained on their psyche and their identity in such a case and a change could be problematic. That said, I still don’t know if I’d tell someone who was born with a mangled face that they couldn’t get a surgery because they might not be able to handle it… Until there is evidence that people in such cases cannot handle it, I say we err on the side of helping people live more “normal” lives if they want to try such a step. Now, if an operation that failed could not be attempted again and a person would be left without a face permanantly, that’s another issue but the article makes it seem that other operations can take place if it weren’t to “take.” ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-face-the-ethics-of-face-transplants/333489/2 "2005-12-01T01:21:06Z")
I don’t see how this raises any ethical questions at all. If you’ve had your face chewed off by a dog, you already don’t look like you used to, so what’s the problem? And if you were born with serious facial deformities, how is this substantially different than corrective plastic surgery, except that it sounds like it might be more effective? ---
**Author:** ![ImaginalDisc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a88e57/32.png) [@ImaginalDisc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ImaginalDisc)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-face-the-ethics-of-face-transplants/333489/3 "2005-12-01T01:27:07Z")
IANA a doctor, but since it’s a transplant, she’s going to need immunsupressive drugs, to avoid rejecting her face (please, no jokes), which is a complication a more traditional reconstructive surgeory probably wouldn’t involve. I can’t imagine the stress of knowing that there’s a significant risk that my immune system might attack my own face. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-face-the-ethics-of-face-transplants/333489/4 "2005-12-01T01:39:37Z")
[Already posted.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=347287) .