Harvesting Organs from Animals is Wrong
Dr Vernon Coleman
The following essay is taken from my book `Betrayal of Trust’, first published in 1994 and now available again as a paperback.
In recent years some surgeons, scientists and entrepreneurs have claimed that in the future it will be possible to save human lives by breeding and then implanting organs from animals which have been genetically altered so that they are not rejected by the human tissues. The theory is that by implanting human genes in animals such as pigs, the scientists will be able to breed creatures which will be part animal and part human being. The scientists believe that when the hearts, livers and other organs are chopped out of these hybrid animals and stuck into human patients they won’t be rejected.
I have several reasons for objecting to these experiments.
First, I have strong moral and ethical objections to the idea of mixing human and animal genes to create new animals.
I know that it is unfashionable to have moral or ethical objections to anything scientific these days but just where is this sort of research going to stop? If scientists mixed postmen genes with whippet genes we could get our letters delivered more quickly. But at what point does the creature the scientists are creating stop being an animal and start acquiring human rights? Can you legally tear the organs out of a creature which is part human? How many human genes do you need to get a credit card? If one of these new hybrid creatures starts getting mail from the Readers’ Digest will the scientists still be able to tear its liver out without having their collars felt?
Second, who gave scientists permission to start messing around with animals this way? Has anyone faxed God and asked for His views? Scientists are claiming patents on some of the animals they’re creating. What will happen if God hears about this? Will He be happy?
Third, no one else seems to have thought about this (or dared to mention it) but where is the money going to come from to pay for all the extra transplant operations? We’ll need regiments of extra surgeons and thousands of new hospitals.
At the moment it is the shortage of transplant organs which is saving nations from bankruptcy but when surgeons can pop into their nearest supermarket and pick out a hybrid heart `Ready for Use: From the Freezer to the Chest Cavity’ we’re going to have big problems.
Animal organ transplants could be used to save several hundred thousand lives a year. The total bill could easily mean that in Britain the rest of the NHS will have to close down. Or taxes will have to go up to £1.78 in the £1 to pay for it all.
Has anyone else stopped to think all this through?
Fourth, when are things going to go seriously, horrifyingly, frighteningly, blood chillingly wrong? When men in white coats say that everything is foolproof and nothing can go wrong I get this funny tingling feeling down my spine. Things will go wrong. Believe me. Things will go wrong. One in six patients in hospital is already there because doctors and medical scientists have screwed up.
Fifth, what about the enormous religious and cultural problems this is all going to create? If you try flying into the Middle East with a pigskin belt holding your trousers up you’re likely to be deported and have your belt confiscated. What happens if you’ve got a pig’s heart pumping away in your chest? (`I’m sorry, sir, we’ll have to confiscate the heart but you’ll be free to leave the country afterwards.’)
It makes me go cold inside. Are we all really this desperate to live forever?
NOTE
The above was taken from `Betrayal of Trust’ by Vernon Coleman (first published in 1994).
A new paperback edition of `Betrayal of Trust’ is available from the bookshop on www.vernoncoleman.com
Copyright Vernon Coleman 1994
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