Animal Case

Using animals as organ factories is another example of the belief that humans have the right to use animals however they please. Animals are seen as objects, whose only value is in their usefulness to humans.

However, animals are individuals with feelings, desires, intelligence, and the ability to enjoy their lives, They have value in themselves, not only as useful objects for humans. As a result, they have a right to consideration and respect, as does any other human, regardless of their intelligence, race, appearance, etc. As one writer has said:

" Animals have a right to live, to be free of pain and suffering, and to pursue their own natural and essential interests. "

Using animals as organ factories denies this right. It condemns animals to suffer and die, and to spend their short existence in a sterile laboratory to avoid possible diseases. They will be surgically removed from their mother and never have any contact with her. They will be fed only sterilised food and be kept in sterile pens where there is no opportunity for them to express their natural behaviour.

Even with these precautions, there is no guarantee that animals won't pass on viruses to humans. At first chimpanzees and baboons were considered for transplants, but the risk of catching viruses from our near relatives was too high. Deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS probably came from primates.

Pigs are now being considered, but they too can pass on diseases to humans. New viruses in pigs are being discovered all the time. In addition, they have 2 retroviruses in their DNA that can infect human cells in culture. The fact that people who have had contact with pig tissues so far haven't developed new diseases is no guarantee that it won't happen in future.

Foreign tissues are always rejected by the body - they are destroyed within a short time by the immune system. This is true even of human transplants and will be even more of a problem with tissue from other species. Scientists aim to overcome the first stage of rejection by genetically engineering pigs to express specific human genes that will reduce this immune response. However, transplant patients will still need large doses of immuno-suppressive drugs to stop the later stages of rejection.

There is no guarantee that pig organs will work in a human body. The heart has a different structure, and the kidneys and especially the liver produce a large range of chemicals needed by the body. Pig organs can produce only the pig versions of the chemicals, not those produced by humans.

Instead of using animals, it would be much better to increase the supply of human organs. Some countries have done this by a system called Presumed Consent , where it is assumed that everyone is an organ donor unless they register an objection. In Austria the supply of organs increased four-fold when this system was introduced.

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