Last night PBS and Nova had a show on the incredible body. The subject was the heart and the transplanting of hearts, which is called harvesting, and all that pertains to why people have heart transplants.
They showed a medical team, called the harvest team because they get the donated organ and bring it to the receiver. I found it fascinating all the expense and undertakings spent on harvesting a heart from a car accident victim on the other side of the country.
The team work was incredible, how just as the heart arrived to the receiver, the patient was ready to be implanted with the heart. When they put the heart in, it had to be jump-started with an electronic shock because once the heart stopped, it can't beat on its own. The heart, once cut from the donor, will not be any good after 4 hours. It is put on ice and transported across the country and placed in the transplantee with just enough time to spare.
How interesting it was to watch all this fuss over an organ which cannot live outside the human body, and yet a fetus can live outside the body. The fetus is called an "organ" and yet is not attributed with life. A heart is an organ and it gets special treatment for its capacity to sustain life. A fetus is life into itself living, and is not granted the special treatment of a heart. Maybe we should start having harvesting life from the womb on donor cards. We go to great lengths to harvest organs for those who are dying, and yet we cannot see the value in life becoming.
They showed a medical team, called the harvest team because they get the donated organ and bring it to the receiver. I found it fascinating all the expense and undertakings spent on harvesting a heart from a car accident victim on the other side of the country.
The team work was incredible, how just as the heart arrived to the receiver, the patient was ready to be implanted with the heart. When they put the heart in, it had to be jump-started with an electronic shock because once the heart stopped, it can't beat on its own. The heart, once cut from the donor, will not be any good after 4 hours. It is put on ice and transported across the country and placed in the transplantee with just enough time to spare.
How interesting it was to watch all this fuss over an organ which cannot live outside the human body, and yet a fetus can live outside the body. The fetus is called an "organ" and yet is not attributed with life. A heart is an organ and it gets special treatment for its capacity to sustain life. A fetus is life into itself living, and is not granted the special treatment of a heart. Maybe we should start having harvesting life from the womb on donor cards. We go to great lengths to harvest organs for those who are dying, and yet we cannot see the value in life becoming.
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