What are the ethical aspects of using animal organs to save human lives?
Animal tissues have been used as grafts to humans for decades. Heart valves from pigs have been used succesfully to replace damaged heart valves in humans with great success. Blood vessels from cows were used to replaced damaged blood vessels in humans prior to the development of synthetic materials such as Dacron and Goretex. There are two major ethical concerns regarding xenografts: the concern that xenotransplantation will introduce viruses into the human population and the concern that animals have the same “rights” as humans do and therefore should not be put to death, even if it saves human lives. Regarding the first question, this area is currently being hotly debated. No one knows whether transplanting animal organs into humans can possibly result in the outbreak of an animal virus in the human species. Noted authorities in virology are concerned about the possibility, but no one really knows if it is likely or not,and many scientists feel it is very unlikely. The National Inst
