The artificial heart: how close are we, and do we want to get there?

The artificial heart appears here to stay, and it will become ever more reliable and therapeutic. In the new age of medicine, the attributes of humanity are blended with the mechanical and artificial. While we express our humanness by seeking new and more creative treatments for illness and delaying death, we are inevitably modifying what it means to be human. Ethical issues arise from the interface of the physician-patient relationship and the technologies being developed in today's laboratories. The new Luddites may well be too fearful to tackle the challenges of technology wed to humanity. But they rightly say we seem woefully unprepared to deal with human hubris and will to power.