Would you donate your face for a transplant?

If you saw the Star Trek: Voyager episode Faces, where the Vidiian researcher Sulan helps himself to the face of a hapless -- and definitely unwilling -- captive Voyager crewmember, you will understand why I found the recent headlines about the first partial face transplant a little, well, disquieting.

As expected, the ethics of this situation are being debated world-wide, from the question of whether it is possible to obtain true "informed consent" from the patient for a procedure with such unknown risks and benefits, to how one finds suitable "willing donors", to what kind of medical situation warrants such a solution. And it's all further complicated by the disclosure that the recipient of the transplant -- and her doctors -- had signed a contract for a film three months before the surgery.

Just because the technology exists, does that mean we should use it? As noted here,

Even if the science is up to speed, ... transplant surgery is not possible without willing donors.

Of course, that statement assumes a certain ethical standard, one which the Vidiians lacked. (Readers of Larry Niven's "known space" stories may recall the problems that society encountered with "organ-legging" and the selling of organs from executed criminals for transplants to extend the lives of the rich, leading to the application of capital punishment to an ever-increasing number of more and more innocuous "crimes".)

Anyway, assuming the ethical standards are functioning... would you donate your face? Would you allow the donation of your loved one's face? Is it really any different from donating your corneas, spleen, kidney, lungs, heart? If you've listed yourself as an organ donor on your driver's license, you might end up "donating" any or all of those organs... and now, maybe your face, too.

As if we didn't have enough to think about when renewing our driver's licenses.