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This chapter presents a discussion on bioethical casuistry, demonstrating it in practice with two cases of animal biotechnology. It recommends the use of bioethical casuistry as the most useful method of moral evaluation. It analyzes two contrasting projects with human-medical implications: the “biopharming” of transgenic goats in order to harvest proteins in the animals’ milk; and the creation of genetically modified pigs for the long-term goal of xenotransplantation. This chapter shows that the construction of a continuum of moral permissibility for the area of animal biotechnology provides a way to evaluate individual projects in transgenic science or animal cloning.

This chapter describes four national models for coming to terms with the risks and promises of xenotransplantation (XT)—in the United States, the European Union, Canada, and Australia. Each regulatory model discussed in this chapter offers characteristic features that normalize XT within a larger constitutional order. It explains the four epistemic and social constructions developed to normalize XT as a biomedical practice. The chapter shows that a passage toward a new “politics of chimeras” and a new bioconstitutional moment is taking place in relation to XT, with the global technoscientific and regulatory orders mutually generating, or coproducing, each other.

In the introduction, “Moral Neutrality and the Scientific Imaginary,” I map out the history of this project and make particular claims about the value of ethnographic investigation as a means to uncover otherwise hidden evidence of widespread moral thinking in science. A premise that drives the work as a whole is that highly experimental contexts in science engender moral thought and that the related (and often competing) fields of xenotransplantation and biomechanical engineering (henceforth “bioengineering”) provide especially compelling contexts in which to explore this. Both are morally charged precisely because organ transplantation itself is driven by the intense desire to stave off death and alleviate suffering. Given the widespread understanding that organs are in scarce supply, from the start, those working on experimental alternatives understand their work as virtuous forms of science. The introduction is also devoted to unpacking the significance of the “imaginary” as a way to explore the nature of moral thinking.

Chapter 1, “The Reconfigured Body of the Transplant Imaginary,” interrogates the premise that experimental work necessitates tampering with the body’s integrity, involving animal and, subsequently, human subjects. The use of bodies is essential to testing experimental ideas; because it also induces harm, scientists must think with care about the moral parameters of their work. I am interested in how standardized bioethical frameworks inflect sometimes individualized sentiments and convictions. More importantly, though, are scientists’ quotidian behaviors and sentiments: these expose all too frequently overlooked—yet richly textured—moralities. Within such contexts, one encounters the logic of experimental work regarding efforts to fabricate (and legitimate) human bodies comprised in part of “artificial” and animal parts.

In chapter 2, “Hybrid Bodies and Animal Science: The Promises of Interspecies Proximity,” I explore the first of two ethnographic domains central to this project. Although efforts within xeno science correspond with watershed moments in allotransplantation, xeno research has nevertheless been stymied by repeated clinical failures (patients die very soon after implantation) and public resistance (most notably from animal activists). Indeed, one might argue that this pairing of scientific failure with social controversy renders xeno the more highly experimental of the two domains. More importantly here, such realities shape scientists’ moral frameworks in profound ways. Of special import are shifting views on whether simian or porcine species define the most ideal candidates as “donor” species. Categories of experimental animals are imagined differently across species and over time, exposing shifting moral premises regarding the scientific legitimacy of using various creatures in effort to save and extend human lives.

Chapter 4, “Temporality and Social Desire in Anticipatory Science,” addresses the significance of temporal thinking in experimental domains. Inspired by Jane Guyer, who offers provocative ways to explore temporal discourse, I consider scientists’ futuristic ideas as defining an open-ended form of prophecy focused on an ever-shifting endpoint. For example, a truism often voiced by xeno researchers is that xeno is “the future of transplantation … and always will be” (a statement coined by Sir Roy Calne, a liver surgeon and pioneer within multiple branches of transplant research). Bioengineers, in turn, often underscore that their work is never truly completed, because every prototype has design flaws or can always be further refined or perfected. In their various efforts to persist in their work, xeno scientists and bioengineers must each rely on the steady flow of investment capital, inevitably transforming animals, heart devices, and also human patients into potentially lucrative sources of biocapital. The fickleness of venture capital has an especially profound effect on the trajectory of research, for each of these domains shaping, in turn, a calculus of life and death in the clinic.

In the book’s conclusion, “The Moral Parameters of Virtuous Science,” I circle back to these earlier discussions, revisiting questions of desire and longing as a means to address the inseparable values of desire, hope, and compassion in two experimental domains whose experts are intent on radically transforming human life.

Animal ‘models’ of health and disease have been central to biomedical science since at least when William Harvey used dogs to illustrate the fact that blood is pumped by the heart through the arteries and then through the veins back to the heart. In the 1980s, a major step forward came with the discovery of embryonic stem cells and ways to manipulate these genetically and then inject into mouse embryos, resulting in the creation of knockout and knockin mice with deletions, or more subtle changes, in specific genes. Unfortunately, it has been impossible to isolate embryonic stem cells from any other species besides mice, and more recently rats and humans. Yet rodents are far from the best animals for modelling, say the body’s metabolism or heart function and disease, or brain function and mental disorders. Instead, pigs and primates are potentially far better models for these respective areas of research. CRISPR/Cas genome editing has made it possible for the first time to create precisely genome edited versions of pigs, monkeys, and any other species that may provide a better model of specific aspects of human health and disease, than rodents. So genetically modified pigs might be used to study heart disease, but also provide hearts for human transplantation, while GM monkeys might help us better understand the biological basis of mental disorders such as depression or schizophrenia. However, this area of research is raising ethical issues about the creation of monkeys with human versions of particular genes, and how this might affect their behaviour and personality.

Xenotransplantation involves ‘the transplantation of living cells, tissues, or organs of animal origin or of human material that has had ex vivo contact with these living, xenogeneic materials’. The most pressing concern raised by clinical xenotransplantation is the risk of transmitting infectious diseases across the species barrier; then from the xeno-recipient to her close contacts (including involved health professionals) and the wider public. This chapter presents some of the key issues relating to xenotransplantation; considers the xeno-surveillance regimes suggested or implemented to date; and examines the role of the law in protecting global health in this context.

The regulatory evolution of medical technologies in the EU offers a unique perspective with regard to highlighting significant elements of both European science policy and the development of European institutions, especially with regard to the passage from their (primarily) economic to their political phases. Since the early 1990s, while establishing a market for biotechnology, the European Communities have been developing some policy-related visions of technoscience and its potential risks, while at the same time framing the concept of European citizenship through European values and rights. The emerging and re-emerging medical technology of xenotransplantation, namely the clinical use of cells, tissues, and organs between species, while having evolved from its primary focus on organs to so-called advanced therapies (cell therapy, gene therapy, and tissue-engineered products), also provided an opportunity to test and implement different science policy models in dealing with risks and uncertainties in the European knowledge-based and innovation-oriented society.