Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
University of Melbourne Law School, Carlton, Victoria, Australia.
J Med Ethics. 2019 Jul;45(7):440-446. doi: 10.1136/medethics-2018-105227. Epub 2019 Jun 29.
It may soon be possible to generate human organs inside of human-pig chimeras via a process called interspecies blastocyst complementation. This paper discusses what arguably the central ethical concern is raised by this potential source of transplantable organs: that farming human-pig chimeras for their organs risks perpetrating a serious moral wrong because the moral status of human-pig chimeras is uncertain, and potentially significant. Those who raise this concern usually take it to be unique to the creation of chimeric animals with 'humanised' brains. In this paper, we show how that the same style of argument can be used to critique current uses of non-chimeric pigs in agriculture. This reveals an important tension between two common moral views: that farming human-pig chimeras for their organs is ethically concerning, and that farming non-chimeric pigs for food or research is ethically benign. At least one of these views stands in need of revision.
通过一种称为种间囊胚互补的过程，在人猪嵌合体中生成人类器官可能很快成为现实。本文讨论了这种潜在的可移植器官来源引发的核心伦理问题：为了获取人猪嵌合体的器官而养殖它们可能会造成严重的道德错误，因为人猪嵌合体的道德地位不确定，而且具有潜在的重要性。那些提出这一担忧的人通常认为，这只存在于具有“人性化”大脑的嵌合动物的创造中。在本文中，我们展示了如何使用相同的论证风格来批判当前农业中非嵌合猪的使用。这揭示了两种常见道德观点之间的一个重要紧张关系：养殖人猪嵌合体获取器官在伦理上令人担忧，而养殖非嵌合猪用于食物或研究在伦理上是良性的。至少有一个观点需要修正。
