If this becomes commonplace and animals are bred/raised just for their organs, we get into murky ethical territory. (Yes, people already eat the organs for food, that's murky too. But industrial scale organ farming sounds even worse somehow.)
I'm living with heart failure. I have 20-30 years before I'll need a transplant, if I live a perfect lifestyle and keep my other health issues under control. Due to my other health issues, I am not a good candidate for a human heart transplant. It's not that a human heart transplant would fail, but that when I'd be placed against others on the list for a new heart, my other health issues would reduce my priority such that there is always someone with higher priority to receive a heart, up until the point in which I'm no longer healthy enough to receive a transplant. There are far too few human hearts, and far too many people who need one. All that the transplant boards can do is give hearts to those with the greatest momentary need, with the best chance of surviving.
Xenotransplantation is one of the life lines I'm counting on. I'm hoping that, by the time I need it, the issues that we currently have will be worked out. I have zero ethical issues with breeding and eventually culling pigs in order to save human lives. I hope that there will be other, better, breakthroughs by then, but if not, the best I can hope for is that the pigs are raised in a sterile and enriching environment, and that the only bad day they have is their last day.
Unfortunately no, after the surgery the pigs are full of ketamine, blood thinners, anticoagulants, vasoconstrictors, and other medications required for surgery and euthanasia and are not fit for human consumption.
Who would eat it these days? The same with e.g. sheepskins. The labor to process them in western countries is so high so they generally just get thrown away.
The ethical reasoning is we don't care about the pigs, millions of lives will be saved by exno kidney transplants. The argument is already very strong that we should pay to donate their kidneys given the scale of death (especially among the poor) kidney disease already causes, so a pig is nothing in comparison
While I agree that it’s is pretty hard to ethically justify killing a pig for food, but I think I am ok with all that pig killing being used for helping sick humans.
While I don’t think we should be torturing animals or anything, obviously, I think I am humanist enough to where I think the ethical thing is to prioritize human lives or avoiding severe long-term discomfort (as is the case with dialysis).
If this becomes commonplace and animals are bred/raised just for their organs, we get into murky ethical territory. (Yes, people already eat the organs for food, that's murky too. But industrial scale organ farming sounds even worse somehow.)