Ethical question on animal organ donations.

[Amandasmom]

Ethical question, I was reading a magazine and they asked the question: If your dog needed a new liver, would you take the liver from a dog in a shelter. So would you kill a dog so that your dog would live?

[Mary Plummer]

I'm sitting here looking at Mr. Blue, knowing I'd spend any amount of money to save him, but I couldn't kill another dog. I read something about a cat kidney-donation program, where the client can get one kidney for their cat, and adopt the donor cat. I would participate in a program like this, but I couldn't sacrifice another dog's life to save Mr. Blue's.

[davet]

sacrificed for the benefit of another, unless its follows the criteria that MP said

[Mary Plummer]

...or would they be in violation of a code, or their oath or something? I know we can't equate it with a human case, because of murder charges, but would a vet who did this get in trouble?

[oconnorjoy]

I would think it would be a case of ethics. How could a person kill one animal to save another and still sleep at night.

[davet]

"kill" am amimal but it is for some good and ethical reason but it should not be done as a means of sacrificing one for the benefit of another...i am not sure if that is a matter or ethics or conscience..Here i am saying this even though, when i was in med research before vet school, i did "sacrifice" animals but it was for the benefit of humans, ie human medical drug research....still now don't know if that was right or not

[Traci]

You might thank the cloning idiots for presenting that ethical question/dilemna. If they are allowed to proceed with their half-baked plans, well we know what will be next....

To my knowledge, there is no program in place for organ donations for pets, save for the kidney transplants in cats, and you are correct, Mary, the owner must adopt the donor and provide a home and care for the rest of the donor's life.

It might interest you to know that there is ongoing research for alternatives in treating such cases. I've read where research was looking into transplanting healthy living cells from a donor into a debilitated patient, i.e., liver disease. I'm sure the core study was done in mice or rats, but the research is now including humans. We're talking about cell research here, though, NOT organ transplanting. I think any vet who must question his/her ethics would follow alternative routes before even considering sacrificing another pet for the life of another.

[Mary Plummer]

...out for people (and pets ! Every now and then our news shows a report about the numbers of people who have died because of the lack of organ donors/liver donors, and it's really sad. It would be great if this new research works@

[TheSkeptic]

Looking at it in another way. What if the organ came from a dog that was going to be euthanized for some other reason. Would you accept it then?

[Traci]

I gave that some thought too, Skeptic, and I personally can't answer that. Until organ transplants are widely available and meet ethical standards, I don't know. There are so many failed transplants in humans that I would think it would be like playing with fire. I don't think our pets are as resilient as humans where transplants are concerned. Even in cats, there is always a potential of organ failure, subsequent infection or other problems.