- Face transplant patient uses new lips to smoke!!

[Guest guest]

,

I do hear

where you are coming from. I don’t believe in attachments to

outcome, however. Yes, I believe in equal rights and opportunity –

like a right to vote, a right to health care, a right to a fair trial, and so

on. But freedom of choice is part of our responsibility as spiritually

evolving souls. I believe that society as a whole must work together to

resolve issues at their core. The alcoholic and drug abuser are in great

need of treatment just as my bipolar children have been. Addictions are

part of that person’s make-up. They are born with a vulnerability

to addictions and their environment often leads them in a less than favorable

direction. Without proper treatment, accountability doesn’t stand

much chance with them. It’s not feasible to tell an anorexic to

just eat or to tell a depressed person to just get over it and think

positively. They can’t do it. They need help. It’s

not any different with addicts. They have the physical addiction as well

as, often times, generations of abuse and dysfunction passed on down to

them. Undoing all that isn’t as simple as we’d like to

think. When someone is given the gift of a transplant, no matter what

their circumstances, I believe we can not attach expectations to what they do

with their new lease on life. On the other hand, we as a society could

work much harder to prevent the need in the first place for such transplants

due to addictions. Perhaps the very reason those addicts chose to be

addicts in this life was to teach the rest of us where we need to put our

focus. Prevention is a wonderful thing.

I understand

the feelings of unfairness that you are expressing, but I don’t believe

the answer lies in dictating who deserves a transplant or how they should

behave once they get one. Anyone who needs a transplant deserves

one if their HP feels it is in the best interest of their best outcome.

It may not feel great at the time, but our pain, chaos, and tragedies are the

very sources of our spiritual growth. I have to believe that if someone

gets the transplant that my son so desperately needs, there is a divine reason

for it and there will be plenty of people who will be forever changed, one way

or another, from that life event. We will learn and grow from it.

God knows I want more than anything for my son to survive and grow to a ripe

old age. But his fate is not in our hands. I accept whatever

lessons pass my way and am grateful for the opportunity to leave the big

decisions in the hands of our Great Mystery. Meanwhile, I pray for

guidance, wisdom, patience and energy so that I might make good choices along

the way.

mho

From: [mailto: ] On Behalf Of jasonsea

Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006

2:30 PM

To:

Subject: Re: ] Face

transplant patient uses new lips to smoke!!

,

In this particular case I would agree that she

should be left to her

own decisions. In her case the transplant

gift she received was not at

the expense of another person who might die

because there were not

enough organs to go around. Additionally,

she did not choose of course

to be deformed by a dog. What about those

who's behavior caused their

condition such as alcoholic cirrosis or Hepatitis

C contracted from IV

drug use? I am not saying these people

should not be transplanted but

I would be upset if they were transplanted and

then continued the

behavior that got them sick in the first

place. There are times where

society should have standards and should hold

their citizens

accountable to those standards. Many of the

problems we face in

society today I believe are a result of a lack of

that societal

accountability.

in Seattle