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Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

irishtimes.com

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Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#151

Post by tjader »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #108
drenvuk wrote: post #21

I'm a full on speciesist. let's do more of this. since we're already eating them I feel like this even a more reasonable usage of their lives. can we do kidneys next please? we can basically shut down most dialysis clinics after that.

The next logical step is to breed pigs with organs that especially suit humans, maybe with some genetic engineering to optimise them. I really can't see anyone needing an organ complaining that they're GMO. As long as we treat animals well while they're alive (and why wouldn't you, you want high quality low stress organs) then there's really no limit here, morally.

The pig kidney and heart recently transplanted have already been genetically engineered. So far it's only to avoid rejection, but other modifications are likely on the roadmap.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#152

Post by mapme »

Pxtl wrote: post #139
mapme wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t you need to kill the animal in the prime of its life, causing a moral issue?

Food animals are killed in adolescence for far less noble reasons. I'm a vegetarian. Grow me a goddamned lung pig.

I understand your view and agree with what you’ve said, however, the primary point was that there are moral implications if you intervene in another life so it is not a moral freebie.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#153

Post by kdtop »

anonymousiam wrote: post #53

The article says; "Almost 22 years later the first ever xenotransplant has finally taken place." They seem to have forgotten about this baboon-to-human heart transplant from 1984. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Fae

Yeah, that caught my eye. I did a little research and the first xenotransplant of any kind was somewhere about 1838 -- of a cornea from a pig (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4684730/)

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#154

Post by hiptobecubic »

paxys wrote: post #6
benatkin wrote: post #5

His victim's family (yes, really) doesn't like that he was the first to get a heart transplant. https://nypost.com/2022/01/13/historic-pig-heart-recipient-w... PETA doesn't like that anyone got a pig heart transplant. https://www.peta.org/media/news-releases/first-heart-transpl...

Ugh PETA, always have to butt in just to keep themselves relevant. For the first one, I can totally understand what the victim's family must be going through, but doctors aren't (and shouldn't) be in the business of making moral judgements on who should and shouldn't get to live. There is an established process in place for organ transplants (time on the wait list, viability of the transfer) and that's all that needs…

> Ugh PETA, always have to butt in just to keep themselves relevant.

This is literally what they are all about. It's like complaining that the IOC keeps whining about athlete doping just to try to stay relevant.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#155

Post by hiptobecubic »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #30
giantg2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...and a tremendous waste of resources that could be used to fund research that might actually help humans." Hey PETA, source?

PETA hates anything that makes animals useful to humans. It could solve world peace and they’d be arguing that surely there’s a better way.

I don't think peta would consider it "world peace" yet.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#156

Post by mapme »

drenvuk wrote: post #149
mapme wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t you need to kill the animal in the prime of its life, causing a moral issue?

Pigs reach slaughter weight at about 6 months[0] and the lifetime of a domestic pig is 15 to 20 years. Their breeding age is 8+ months. So we kill them before they reach the prime of their life most of the time. Killing them at their prime might be less of a moral issue than what we do currently. [0] https://modernfarmer.com/2016/05/raising-pigs/#:~:text=Most%... .

That is an interesting comparison to other reasons why we kill animals, however, the point wasn’t a relative moral comparison to animal slaughter for food purposes but that it’s not zero cost morality wise to kill an animal in its prime.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#157

Post by bostonsre »

yboris wrote: post #105
emptyparadise wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>“The key principle in medicine is to treat anyone who is sick, regardless of who they are,” said Arthur Caplan, a bioethics professor at New York University. “We are not in the business of sorting sinners from saints. Crime is a legal matter.” This is so simple and newspapers trying to make it into a matter for debate is actually compromising that.

Side-comment that doesn't apply in this case, but worth mentioning: "regardless of who they are" seems like a shitty blanket principle to have. For example, hospitals are overstuffed with COVID patients means regular patients die as a result. In many cases, "The overwhelming majority of the patients had COVID-19, and 98% of those needing acute critical care were unvaccinated." This means people who choose to not take…

It's a slippery slope.. I think the uneducated are less likely to be vaccinated and it doesn't seem right to refuse service to someone because they believed something that was incorrect. Say there were people with mental handicaps that fell in this camp, it would be even worse.

And where do you draw the line for who gets help for stuff unrelated to covid? Having a do no harm type moral code seems like the best way to navigate and avoid the minefield of deciding who deserves care in what circumstances.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#158

Post by joshuamorton »

yboris wrote: post #105
emptyparadise wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>“The key principle in medicine is to treat anyone who is sick, regardless of who they are,” said Arthur Caplan, a bioethics professor at New York University. “We are not in the business of sorting sinners from saints. Crime is a legal matter.” This is so simple and newspapers trying to make it into a matter for debate is actually compromising that.

Side-comment that doesn't apply in this case, but worth mentioning: "regardless of who they are" seems like a shitty blanket principle to have. For example, hospitals are overstuffed with COVID patients means regular patients die as a result. In many cases, "The overwhelming majority of the patients had COVID-19, and 98% of those needing acute critical care were unvaccinated." This means people who choose to not take…

No, it really shouldn't. I'll be the first to say that unvaccinated people are morally bad, and their actions are harmful to wider society.

But, and this is a really important but, the way to punish that behavior isn't to deny them care in the hospital. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that not every unvaccinated person is unvaccinated by choice. But more generally because applying any sort of moral standard to who lives and who dies in an emergency gets incredibly murky incredibly quickly.

If you want to punish people for failing to get vaccinated, I'm all for it. But do so outside of a hospital.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#160

Post by MisterMower »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #74
polishdude20 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first argument is a slippery slope. What crimes disqualify you from getting a heart? How much repentance do you have to go through the get qualified back? Who judges that?

You’d can’t just have a list of disqualifying crimes. You’d need to balance things out a proper social credit score. With an indirect death penalty attached, yes. Can’t think of how this could go wrong at alllllllllllll

The guy should have got the death penalty for attempted and arguably successful murder (the victim later died of a stroke directly attributable to the wounds he received from the stabbing). 10 years for stabbing a guy multiple times to the point of putting him in a wheel chair is a slap on the wrist.

Funny how a lot of problems work themselves out when swift justice is delivered. This whole thread doesn’t exist in that alternative, more just world.

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