TRANSPLANT SURGERYThe first successful kidney transplant was fifty years ago, but it wasn’t
until the advent of powerful anti-rejection medicines like cyclosporine in
the 1980s that organ transplantation in the United States and around the
world was unleashed. America has, by far, the highest rates of organ
transplantation of any country in the world. In the year 2014, there were
29,539 organ transplant operations in the United States.^65 As opposed to
every other data source in this chapter, this is an exact number, due to the
supremacy of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) and its
stellar record keeping and oversight powers. In 2014, there were 17,108
kidney transplants, 6,730 liver transplants, 2,655 heart transplant
operations, and 1,925 lung transplant operations. All heart transplant
operations are from deceased donors, but overall, about one-fifth of organ
transplant operations are performed from a living donor, including one-
third of all kidney operations.^66
In vitro fertilization (IVF) is arguably the greatest life-giving operation
known to mankind, as it is truly the creation of a human being in a
laboratory setting. Beginner biology students learn about asexual
reproduction among spores, bacteria, and many single-cell organisms.
Except for rare examples of asexual reproduction among fish, amphibians,
and even birds, animals develop from fertilized eggs; sexual fertilization
(whatever form of copulation occurs) demands an interaction between
male and female. Anonymous fertilization of numerous eggs by, say, a
disinterested king salmon is the norm among lower invertebrates, but the
creation of a mammal requires an intimate interaction among male and
female—until now.
According to the CDC, there are about 72,000 live born infants every
year in America arising from assisted reproductive technology (ART).^67
Two centuries ago John Hunter achieved groundbreaking insight by
pickling chicken eggs at varying stages of development, leading him to
believe that humans also developed from eggs in utero. Now, in the last
several decades, IVF technology has given modern man the ability to
achieve a sort of asexual reproduction, resulting in 1.5 percent of
American births^68 and one million American “test tube” babies.^69 One
could argue that IVF embryos are temporary implants, but with the