In 2004, the Comité Consultatif National d'Éthique (French National Consultative Committee of Ethics) was alarmed by some surgeons' idea to extend the harvesting of body parts from deceased people to the face. Transferring "one of the major markers" of one's humanity and singularity from one person to another was considered "inconceivable". A few months later, the first surgery happened. How what bioethics deemed unacceptable in principle has been rendered acceptable in practice? This article analyzes the process by which the face has become an anonymous organ, thus interchangeable, based on the experience of five recipients in France. It shows that the policy of anonymity of organ donation serves as a practical support to facial transplant actors, to render the face an interchangeable subject. But it also shows that the anonymization of the facial matter is not done without resistance and that the process can be questioned at any time. Finally, from the facial grafts examples, this article analyzes the specific arrangement of the relationship between body and person, matter and identity, which consists in the anonymous organs donation policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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