Xenografting as a subject for public debate

Xenografting (XT) is the transplantation of organs or tissues between different species. This chapter argues that: Like all techniques, XT not only brings along risks of moral erosion, but also implicates the moral imperative to develop and use it. The use of primates such as baboons and chimpansees for XT experiments has met with strong criticism but it is widely assumed that transplanting organs from genetically engineered pigs will meet with much less public criticism. For some people technological developments such as XT are subjected to a ‘technological imperative” in which there is hardly any room left for morality. In the case of XT a conflict between the interests of humans and animals cannot be more dramatic. One could try to rescue a sort of kinship view by returning to the argument that XT is within the range of an accepted way of the communal living of humans and animals.

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