We are left to invent a new way of being human where bodily parts go into each
other’s bodies, redesigning the landscape of boundaries in the habit of what we are so
definitively used to call (sic) distinct bodies ... My life in its contingency mirrors the
history of techniques, the growing know-how about human bodies, which knows nothing
about the lived-bodies that can and will come from it. (Varela 2001 : 260–261)

Advances in transplant medicine have made it possible to preserve
and extend the life of individuals with end-stage organ disease. Sharp
( 2001 ) notes, however, that the biomedical view of organ transplanta-
tion as a bounded event, which ends once a heart, liver or kidney is suc-
cessfully replaced, belies the complex, dynamic and generative process
that more accurately represents the experience of receiving an organ.
Having incorporated the body part of another person into their own
body, recipients must deal with the blurring of many boundaries: the
complexities of immunosuppression, as well as the challenges of a

9

Gift-of-life? The Psychosocial Experiences

of Heart, Liver and Kidney Recipients

Geraldine O’Brien

© The Author(s) 2017
R.M. Shaw (ed.), Bioethics Beyond Altruism,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55532-4_9

215

G. O’Brien (*)
Murdoch University, Perth, WA, Australia
e-mail: [email protected]

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