The UPMC website makes the argument that organ transfer gives hope to the hopeless, those “patients facing organ failure” (upmc.com). In this way, they use the rhetoric explained by Sharp and Scheper-Hughes. The magical hope contained in the organ being transplanted fetishizes the event, and the language of “hope” is much like the language “encumbered by the medical rhetoric of scarcities, gifts, altruism and life-saving…” (Scheper-Hughes, 34).
They say that to UPMC, it is not about the numbers, but they continue to barrage the would-be patient with numbers. In fact, the big reason that they give you for choosing transplantation at UPMC is that they have performed “more than 17,000 organ transplants” in the last twenty years. They explain to the reader that UPMC is at the forefront in “guiding people to new lives,” providing “support before and after surgery,” and “researchers who move the field forward” (upmc.com). They showcase this information with their breakthrough antirejection therapies and pioneering transplant procedures. They shove the technologies in your face, as well as the bodies of the brave organ recipients. What does it say, though, about the organ donor?
There are very astute breakdowns of the difference between living and “cadaveric” donations. Both are explained, and it is made clear that the living donor must be an adult. Unlike the pages on transplant recipients, the pages on donation do not include romanticized language about bravery and the forefront of aftercare. Under the “Organ Donation Facts” page, the last bullet point is this: “You have the power to save lives and improve the quality of life of those in need of any form of transplant” (upmc.com). Earlier on the page, you are told that you have the ability to save up to 75 lives! These donation facts are mixed in with information regarding the prevalence of the need for organ transplant, how often a person joins “THE LIST” and how many patients die every day, waiting for their organ. The organ that would SAVE THEIR LIFE!
The website seems almost like the propaganda of the World Wars, to me, with the way it instigates the reader. It seems to me like “Only you can prevent forest fires,” “Someone’s missing in the US Army,” and “YOU CAN SAVE UP TO 75 LIVES, EVEN AFTER YOU’RE DEAD!” The mirage is clear now: you can be a hero. You should be a hero! What they never really mention…is that you have to die. (or that you will never actually be a hero.)
Why is this? Is it because so many organ donors are part of the invisible, socially dead bodies who have already been “reduced to the machinery of bodily physical labor…?” (Holland, 15). Instead of mentioning the gruesome prelude to organ donation, the bloody extraction of organs from obligated (socially, familially, legally, etc.) hosts, “the language of the gift permeates nearly all discussions of organ transfer, which is defined as a very particular kind of social giving in America” (Sharp, 13).
We, the reader, the expectedly white and privileged, are assumed to ignore the fact that our organs have to come from somewhere. We are forced (subtly) to turn a blind eye that our kidney may be coming from a poor immigrant, or our liver may have belonged to a child. We are not even allowed to question the possibly gory details of our valiant “donor’s” hospital visit. Did he get hit by a truck? Was she beaten to death by her father? We, the privileged recipient, are not allowed to know.
That is the major ideology we face when reading through this website. There is almost a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, but I am asking. I do not expect to get answers, though. I am not allowed to experience “where tragedy meets the body, where the force of loss is felt like a shuddering tremor in the bones,” (Gere, 1). That is not part of receiving an organ. The “miracle” of organ transfer will have to be enough. If I ever need an organ, I will have to assume that it was given to me, a gift of life, from some happy supplier. They will not have suffered. They will not face suffering to have given me my organ. I will be brave, and they will be left in the shadows. And that will have to be enough.
Works Cited:
Gere, David.
Holland, Sharon P. "Death and the Nation's Subjects." Raising the Dead: Readings of Death and (Black) Subjectivity. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000. 13-40.
Sharp, Lesley A. Strange Harvest: Organ Transplants, Denatured Bodies, and the Transformed Self. Berkley: University of California Press, 2006. 1-41.
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. "Commodity Fetishism in Organs Trafficking." Body and Society. Sage Publications, 2001. 7:31. 31-62.
http://www.upmc.com/Services/TransplantationServices/transplant-upmc/Pages/transplant-upmc.aspx
I was really glad that you noted the numbers game. When i looked at the website originally, I was also struck with the "it's not about the numbers...although *insert long list of numbers which prove our worth here*." I cannot conceptualize someone actively putting together a website which read like that. Surely they could've proved themselves (using numbers if they so desired) in a less hypocritical/contradictory fashion. Do they just not care?
ReplyDeleteI also really liked your connection to "Don't ask, Don't tell." The concept of purposeful ignorance is fascinating.
I find your propaganda relation to UPMC’s website fascinating! I could not find the “donor” information on the site, so reading this blog was very helpful. I find it interesting that you noticed a definite difference in language between the recipient and donor pages. This “You can save up to 75 lives!” message definitely leaves out the part about being dead, which just goes to show which bodies matter, and which do not. Great post!
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