Xenotransplantation

• are animal organ transplants possible

  • pigs have been used as a source for heart valves, but most other transplants wouldn't work since valve transplants strip the living material whereas something like a heart wouldnt function like that
  • rejection is too large an issue currently for widespread xenotransplantation
• historical examples

  • 1902-23, pig, goat sheep and monkey organ transplants were attempted and failed- patients survived for days at most. none were tried again until 63 when immunosuppressants were developed
  • 1963 13 chimpanzee kidney transplants were attempted, one patient survived 9 months
  • baby fae recieved a meant to be temporary baboon heart in 2984 but died 21 days later from rejection
• in 1997 a worldwide ban on xenotransplantation passed due to the risk of animal disease transmission, but 3 years later began to be reassessed and lifted
• 21st century science


  • 2015 crispr, a gene editing technique which altered the dna of pig cells to better match humans was created
  • this aimed to address rejection and animal viruses in the pig dna
  • but more research is needed for genetically modified pigs to grow organs for people
• arguments for xenotransplantation


  • hierarchy of souls
  • dominion
  • any speciesist view which puts humans aboce animals
  • mill's distinction between higher and lower pleasures
  • the benefits of preventing death and suffering outweigh the costs
• arguments against xenotransplantation

  • speciesism is wrong, what right do humans havve to use animals
  • SCREAM/ animals have moral status through aspects they posses like social organisation and cognition
  • stewardship
  • bentham's ideas about pleasure
  • the risks involved like zoonotic disease, the idea hiv came from chimpanzee blood
  • potential alternatives like therapeutic cloning of human organs
• xenotransplantation


  the transfer of cells/tissues/organs from one species to another like human tumor cells into mice for cancer research
• situation ethics- personalism


  do animals qualify as persons? many, like fletcher would say no and since one of the working principles is personalism it could be that agape just doesnt apply to animals
• situation ethics

  might consider is what animal is being used, its more agapeic to use animals like pigs since they are decently pragmatic, close to humans but are something we have in excess unlike say a chimpanzee heart which would be closer to human anatomy but are endangered
• situation ethics- agapeic calculus


  • made more difficult as it needs to be forward looking as the technology doesnt exist yet
  • also zoonotic disease can have disasters pandemic scale consequences, but fletcher would say the risk id necessary to achieve the most loving outcome
• situation ethics

  for ethicists who think there are animals which qualify as people or than agape should be inclusive, they may say donors must either be dead or consenting. but there is still an issue of insufficient donor organs
• situation ethics

  xenotransplantation could be excused as a necessity of our time, humanity doesn't have an alternative yet. its the best tool we have in the situation its currently used for (organ or partial organ transplants). but once we have developed things like therapeutic cloning of human organs, then it would be unagapeic to still use animal organs. they arent as pragmatic since they would reject and get infected easier and its unecessary suffering when you can just grow an organ that wont suffer
• natural moral law- primary precepts

  none of the primary precepts prohibit using animals as a source for organs (except worship god if you take the stewardship angle)
• natural moral law- hierarchy of souls


  aquinas draws from aristotle's hierarchy of souls to put forward the idea that animals oly have instrumental value for humans to use them as they please, so its fine to use them for whatever means we wish, including as a source for organ transplants
• natural moral law


  the catholic church (and most likely aquinas himself) object to the modifying of a species germline due to imago dei and then just the general idea god made the world.

  • catholic medical association said they're "opposed to any xenotransplantation which mght modify the germline and particularly to any transplantation of any sex organs or gametes. we are opposed to any use of human tissue for transplantation into animals
• virtue ethics- aristotle


  aristotle approved of scientific research and placed emphasis on the development of knowledge
• virtue ethics- virtues and vices


  • the virtue of compassion towards patients in need of an organ transplant: the vice of callousness in relation to both animals who are being judged as expendable protestors/society who are distressed by the use of animals
• virtue ethics- hierarchy of souls


  aristotle's hierarchy of souls puts humans above animals, so we can use then in the same way they use plants
• virtue ethics- bad habit forming behaviour


  treating animals as expendable very consistently might be bad habit forming behaviour, causing the moral agent to devalue all life. so maybe xenotransplantation bad