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Ethically sourced "spare" human bodies could revolutionize medicine:
Even if it all works, it may not be practical or economical to "grow" bodyoids, possibly for many years, until they can be mature enough to be useful for our ends. Each of these questions will require substantial research and time. But we believe this idea is now plausible enough to justify discussing both the technical feasibility and the ethical implications.
Bodyoids could address many ethical problems in modern medicine, offering ways to avoid unnecessary pain and suffering. For example, they could offer an ethical alternative to the way we currently use nonhuman animals for research and food, providing meat or other products with no animal suffering or awareness.
But when we come to human bodyoids, the issues become harder. Many will find the concept grotesque or appalling. And for good reason. We have an innate respect for human life in all its forms. We do not allow broad research on people who no longer have consciousness or, in some cases, never had it.
At the same time, we know much can be gained from studying the human body. We learn much from the bodies of the dead, which these days are used for teaching and research only with consent. In laboratories, we study cells and tissues that were taken, with consent, from the bodies of the dead and the living.
Recently we have even begun using for experiments the "animated cadavers" of people who have been declared legally dead, who have lost all brain function but whose other organs continue to function with mechanical assistance. Genetically modified pig kidneys have been connected to, or transplanted into, these legally dead but physiologically active cadavers to help researchers determine whether they would work in living people.
In all these cases, nothing was, legally, a living human being at the time it was used for research. Human bodyoids would also fall into that category. But there are still a number of issues worth considering. The first is consent: The cells used to make bodyoids would have to come from someone, and we'd have to make sure that this someone consented to this particular, likely controversial, use. But perhaps the deepest issue is that bodyoids might diminish the human status of real people who lack consciousness or sentience.
Thus far, we have held to a standard that requires us to treat all humans born alive as people, entitled to life and respect. Would bodyoids—created without pregnancy, parental hopes, or indeed parents—blur that line? Or would we consider a bodyoid a human being, entitled to the same respect? If so, why—just because it looks like us? A sufficiently detailed mannequin can meet that test. Because it looks like us and is alive? Because it is alive and has our DNA? These are questions that will require careful thought.
Until recently, the idea of making something like a bodyoid would have been relegated to the realms of science fiction and philosophical speculation. But now it is at least plausible—and possibly revolutionary. It is time for it to be explored.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Tuesday April 15, @08:54AM (10 children)
Actually, this could make ethical problems worse. Much worse.
As it is cheaper and faster to hunt and kill someone on demand than grow a bodyoid, already established gangs of criminals in this kind of trade may legitimize the true human organs by false bodyoid certificates.
If something may go off bad, it will.
Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 15, @01:29PM (2 children)
>Bodyoids could address many ethical problems in modern medicine, offering ways to
create dystopian science fiction of the most nightmarish variety- bodyoids that gain consciousness and self-awareness. We already have some examples I'm sure.
>As it is cheaper and faster to hunt and kill someone on demand
I have heard stories from the 1990s about a very wealthy elderly man from a very high population country who appeared in a New York hospital one evening requiring medical intervention. His people had assembled a team of ~20 of the best available specialists (one of whom was a friend, thus the story), these physicians were being paid mid-5 figures each to be present for the evening. The initial consulting team determined that organ transplantation offered the best possible outcome, and within less than 24 hours a suitable young donor appeared... the donor was not expected to survive the organ removal long term, but the sponsor did and both were back on his private plane as soon as the sponsor was stable enough to transport.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Tuesday April 15, @01:40PM (1 child)
"The Island" was essentially this exact plot. It was an entertaining movie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_(2005_film) [wikipedia.org]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 15, @02:41PM
Clones is one kind of plot, I'm pretty sure this was just a kid from a poor family who was used for the purpose. As the story reached me there was absolutely no way to know the circumstances of the organ donor's selection / acquisition.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday April 15, @01:40PM (2 children)
It may be cheaper, but I think you'll need to match the DNA, so the pool of candidates will be rather small. ... Immune suppression is possible, but an organ would require a rather extreme version.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 5, Touché) by looorg on Tuesday April 15, @01:56PM (1 child)
If only there was some place that peons paid to have their DNA checked and stored online ... Lets call it 22+1 and me or something. Only so they for fun can find out that they are 1/x Viking, 1/y Native American etc etc. If only there was some other things you could do with all the biological materials they sent in ...
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday April 15, @05:32PM
You've got to be extremely similar in DNA to not need strong immune-suppressants after a transplant of a foreign organ. Usually that means an identical twin, though sometimes a brother or sister is close enough. (I'm not sure how long those kidneys last, or how strong the immune-suppressants need to be.)
(OTOH, I have heard that there's decent progress on just removing everything that contains an antigen that the immune system would recognize...but I don't really expect this to be sufficient anytime soon.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday April 15, @04:22PM (1 child)
I feel like the risk here is overstated.
An organ off the street will require anti-rejection drugs and will be worth significantly less than an organ from a cloned bodyoid that's an exact genetic match for the recipient.
The difficulty is for organs that a protracted amount of time to grow large enough to be useful.
The most common organs for transplantation are the Kidney, Liver, Heart, Lung, and Pancreas. Of these, I assume the heart has to be near net size; I don't know about the others. Partial liver transplants are a thing, so that one I assume is not size critical.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday April 15, @05:36PM
There's work on transplanting pancreatic beta cells surrounded by a membrane that protects them from the immune system. According to the report I read (pop-sci, several years ago) the cells weren't transplanted into the pancreas but somewhere else (I forget where) and they lasted for at least several weeks, with no obvious reason that they couldn't last permanently. (I don't remember for sure, but this may have been a pig or a dog.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 15, @06:41PM
Examine your premises. Organ donation requires someone with immune system compatibility. They don't grow on trees. You have to find that person, then hunt them down. A bodyoid with guaranteed compatibility (say because it's grown from your own stem cells) can be grown, perhaps even on an appropriately engineered tree.
My view is that if the wealthy person in question has planned ahead, then the bodyoid is cheaper and far more legal. The big problem comes in when rich person with really deep pockets direly needs a transplant sooner than can be grown by bodyoid. Finding and snatching someone out of desperation would be more a thing in that case.
(Score: 2) by bussdriver on Thursday April 17, @01:52AM
I am waiting for that story since Dick Cheney got a heart replacement from a long time search for the right one.
I'd prefer a mystery conspiracy story because it'll begin first as something for the elite to do in the shadows. Hopefully getting people ready for when that time comes to prevent it in a severe and strong way before we end up with a dystopian situation where society has broken down to that point. I'm not a fan of fiction that presents the inevitability of such things because it contributes to the chances it becomes reality later on such as making more people cynical to prevention when the times comes.