NYT: Japanese Father and Son Share a Liver and a Political Rivalry
Yohei and Taro Kono are one of the most prominent father-son pairs in Japanese politics, but that has never prevented them from disagreeing in public. In fact, they once battled over the thing that most unites them: legalizing surgical transplants.
For the rest of their lives, the two men must survive on the son’s liver, a piece of which was removed in a 15-hour operation recently and sewn into the father. Yet even for this shared experience, the two men offer contrasting explanations.
In a harrowing account of his illness in a recent opinion column in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, Yohei Kono described how, with his skin turning black as his liver failed under the effects of a 30-year-old hepatitis C infection, he firmly rejected his son’s offer of an organ donation.
I remember Taro when he went to Georgetown and stayed with us (he’s family) a lot when I was a kid. It’s interesting to see the NYTimes covering this aspect of politics.