MSc Arts & Culture
Comparative Cultural Analysis
Master Thesis
Pig Bodies as a Source for
Organ-Harvesting
What xenotransplantation reveals on the porousness of 'othering'
by
Esmee Dirks
10188002
June 2018
18 ECTS
February 1 to June 13, 2018
Supervisor/Examiner:
Examiner:
Dhr. dr. Murat Aydemir
Dhr. dr. Niall Martin
Introduction ... 1
I – The organ as a guest ... 5
The encounter between human material and the pig's body ... 7
The death of the host ... 9
Ethics on the 'breeding machine' ... 12
The pig as an object; so what? We already eat them, right? ... 13
Conclusion : Does the pig have a voice? ... 14
II - Pigs with ‘voices’... 18
The voice of the old host: identity issues ... 19
Viscious bodies, porous bodies: the perspective of materiality ... 23
Transgenic animals in the now: when are we? ... 25
The remaining blood vessels: crossings after all ... 29
Posthuman 'higs' or 'pumans': thinking beyond chimeras ... 31
Conclusion: Pigs have voices ... 34
Conclusion ... 37
Works cited ... 42
Introduction
Last year (2017) the first human-pig 'chimera' has been created in a laboratory for the purpose of scientific research on the possibilities of crossing species and 'organ harvesting' (Devlin, The Guardian.com). For years there had been successful experiments with crossing species but human biological material had not been a part of this. Scientists managed to create a pancreas from the cells of a mouse inside the body of a rat, in order to cure diabetes in another mouse of the same inbred strain as the original mouse that supplied the stem cells (Choi, LiveScience.com). The pancreas that grew inside of this rat was then transplanted into the mouse with a defected pancreas, with great results. Since rodents don't have bodies big enough to host organs the size of human beings, scientists needed to find a perfect host body. In 2016 the first step towards partly human chimeras was taken when studies showed the genetic compatibility between human beings and pigs. A team of scientists at the
University of California, Davis initiated promising experiments concerning the creation of a human pancreas inside pig embryos by injecting human stem cells and making them
respond to the right cues (Wade, NYTimes.com). The gene-editing technique - Crispr - involves altering the genetic makeup of the pigs so that they do not develop a pancreas and then injecting induced pluripotent (iPS) human cells. Because there are no pig cells to compete with, and because the immune system of the embryo has not yet developed, human cells will go on to make a replacement organ inside the animals.
In January 2017 a paper in the journal Cell announced that the first human-pig chimera had been created in a milestone study at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California led by Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte (Wu et al. 473). This being has grown - together with 150 others - out of the 2000 early stage pig embryos that were injected with human stem cells in 2017. It has developed into a chimera that is mostly pig but partly human as well (containing at least 10.000 human cells). (As far as is known) these piglets are the first chimeras that involve the biological material of human beings. With these developments, the prospect of growing human organs inside a pig's body comes within reach. Scientists believe that in two years they will be able to generate human hearts, livers and kidneys from scratch by using pig bodies as hosts. An enormous success, but there are concerns: other types of cells - including blood vessels - originating from the pig could be present in the pancreas. Those would create a problem throughout the development of the organ and could potentially lead to it being rejected by a human body. Concerns have
also been raised about the possible introduction of animal viruses (Pervs) into human patients. As early as September 2015 the National Institute of Health (NIH) - the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research - had stated that the agency would not fund chimeric research. But developments regarding safety over a short period of time led to a slight change of heart. And since August 2016, the NIH have proposed lifting the moratorium on chimeric research (Hafner,
USAToday.com). The most recent discoveries will probably encourage an end to the ban;
scientists discovered a way to remove so-called porcine endogenous retroviruses (Pervs) from pig DNA in August 2017 (Griffin, Independent.co.uk). Crispr combined with gene repair technology deactivated the viruses with no exceptions. With this achievement, the major obstacle for the development of genetically engineered pigs carrying donor organs has been eliminated.
Contemporary biotechnological developments - like chimeric research and xenotransplantation - have led to an ethical debate revolving around the following
questions: to what extent can we use animals as tools for human gain, and should we strive towards scientific progress and towards becoming posthuman? On the one hand,
transhumanists such as Julian Savulescu, Max Moore, Ray Kurzweil and Nick Bostrom say we should use any means necessary to improve the human condition, that it's our moral duty to do so. On the other, bioconservatives like Thomas D. Philbeck, Donna Haraway, Francis Fukuyama and Martin G. Weiss fear the society of the future once we prioritize science over living beings: "moral authority and cultural dominance rests, once again, on the back of the metaphysics of a vestigial worldview that led to the problems of colonialism that most societies seek not to repeat" (Philbeck 435). For the latter, chimeric research is a bridge too far when it evolves sentient beings. More recently the ethical debate has moved (more clearly) towards questions about the use of human subjects for scientific goals. In The Ethics of Research with Human Subjects, a book published recently in 2018, this
controversial topic and the way society deals with it is described (Resnik). The emphasis is on policy, protecting the rights of human beings, government regulation and concerns as a result of media coverage of new scientific developments. In my opinion, this kind of ethical evaluation, which starts from the rational approach, will not be able to solve the feelings of uncomfortableness that arise in citizens whenever there is a scientific breakthrough
(whether it involves humans or animals). We need to put ethics in the freezer for a while and find a new starting point that will eventually lead to an ethical framework that is sufficient to address all matters of posthumanism.
Xenotransplantation in the strict sense is “the transplantation of living cells, tissues or organs from one species to another”1. Transferring a pig's liver to a human body would
be a case of xenotransplantation. When it comes to creating pig-human chimeras it is not that clear whether or not the term xenotransplantation applies. Some people say that this does not belong under that flag because, technically, the organ that is being transplanted is made from the human’s own material. But if we think the other way around (from the perspective of the animal) - transplanting human cells and tissues (i.e. xenografts) from the human species into an animal species - a pig-human chimera ís a case of
xenotransplantation (also because in order for the organ to grow it needs blood vessels from the pig which are included in this chimeric organ once it transfers to the body of the
human). So, that is where my analysis will begin: by approaching the matter through
thinking firstly about the process of changing the animal's bodily interior with human DNA. My aim for this thesis is to think about science outside current human frameworks;
considering the creation of pig-human hybrids as a case of xenotransplantation sets the stage for my further argumentation. Human beings as a species with certain genetics are strange (xeno) to other species - and in this case just as strange as pigs and their material are to us and to our bodies. However, that is exactly where the problems begin: with terms like ‘other’ or 'strange'.
The pigs have been chosen - out of a variety of animals - to be our 'props' because of their similarities to human bodies. What attracts chimera-researchers to this specific species and not (even) primates is the compatibleness of their genetical blueprint. In addition, pig organs are of somewhat the same size as human organs. There are other benefits as well, including the ability to produce more young at one time than, for example, a sheep. This means that fewer animals are needed for research since more data can be produced using only one pig. Also, as said before, it takes a pig only six months to grow into an adult pig ready for its organs to be harvested. Because of this compatibleness, 'strangeness' should not be the key term. It results in a contradiction when it comes to any form of transplantation, as the basis for a successful transplantation, the creation of chimeras or the crossing of species is the physical or genetic similarity of the two (or more) originals. 'Similarity' is thus the premise for this kind of biotechnological research, and this is what I will elaborate on by zooming in on the object of inquiry, namely, the organ. As a traveling object (from one body to the other) and a growing object that is under the influence of time, to me, it reflects
the entirety of the biotechnological era, this being an era in which we use whatever 'life' there is around us to transform and create by understanding nature. However, defining an organ is somewhat arbitrary; it is not really an object. An organ is not an entity or a being, but yet a living 'thing'. The Oxford Dictionaries defines an ‘organ’ as following: “ɔːɡ(ə)n/ noun: a part of an organism which is typically self-contained and has a specific vital function”. For my purposes, the etymology of the word is especially interesting. The word 'organ' stems - via Latin - from the Greek word 'organon' which - apart from 'sense organ' - means: tool, instrument. But, just because an organ is a tool - in the sense that the body uses and needs it to function - does this mean we can use it as a tool?
Borrowing the concept of hospitality from Jacques Derrida will allow me to look upon the organ as a being more than a mere tool. I will apply the mechanisms of hospitality to the experience of human and animal bodies. For the organ as a traveling 'thing' can only do its job when cooperating with other 'things'. Thus, it needs a home, even if it is a temporal one. The body as a house and as a host opens us up to changing our ethical approach towards this material. Also the 'object orientated ontology' of Levi Bryant provides insights on the materiality and therefore on the 'othering' of the host (i.e the pig). Seeing the animal as an object consisting of parts (organs, tissue, arteries) does not
necessarily allow to ignore its moral worth, as becomes clear when approaching the matter from the position of ‘onticology’. I will borrow the 'framework' of new materialists such as Nancy Tuana and Stacey Alaimo - not for the purpose of animal or environmental activism - but to look at the agency of the organ as materiality.
Before setting off, I must emphasize one important point. I have chosen to approach the matter of human enhancement through the usage of natural materials instead of looking at artificial technological interventions (e.g. creating mechanical organs) for an important reason. Even though I cannot state that humans are as of now more engaged with one or the other, the fact that we - either way - search for solutions that will satisfy our drive towards a longer and more healthier life, in nature (the source of our own becoming) reveals a crucial conflict within human beings. One that resides in a paradox that is at the basis of humans trying to transcend themselves, a conflict that will not solve itself if it is not addressed and maybe one that turns out to be unsolvable. On the way to creating the first 'pumans' or 'higs' we come across inevitable problematic issues. Nothing comes without a price when human beings intervene in nature's ways. Through thinking with me as an organ, you will hopefully stop thinking as a human being for a while.
I – The organ as a guest
An organ is residing within the body of a pig - among other organs. Except there is one difference between them: these 'other' organs are permanently inhabiting that pig's body, whereas the former is only temporarily staying in this space of physicality. It is 'the other' within a coherent whole, but yet an indispensable part of it, for it functions as an organ vital to the rest. Without it, the body would not be able to operate. Therefore, the body needs this 'guest-organ' just as much as it needs its predisposed inhabitants. Despite the difference, they serve the same purpose and there is no hierarchical discrepancy. Perhaps, the 'other organ' is even slightly more irreplaceable than another, depending on its task; if it is the heart, it is of more importance that it remains active than it would be for a kidney on the verge of failing, for a heart that does not operate causes death, while a kidney does not. Even more so, the 'other organ' is the one at stake for this experiment. It is the human organ that needs to be prepared for its future departure, leaving the rest of the pig's body to fate. But before leaving, all parts of the body - including the guest-organ - need to work
coherently. The incubator cannot be passive in this production of the human organ at stake. During the process they are of equal importance, otherwise the experiment will fail, and the human that awaits the organ will die. Depending on its place in the system, the necessity of all the parts working properly is a matter of a difference in the urgency with which one should act upon a malfunction, but none of them can be neglected. As parts that form the whole, together they comprise the system, and their formation will slowly be sealed by a network of connections between blood vessels, arteries and other veins. Their unity inside the pig's body is - needless to say - necessary, and in addition, their collaboration provides each one of the organs - so each part of the system - the ability to exercise its singular job and achieve its aim.
What can be said about this assemblage between a foreign set of tissue and the native parts of the pig? How do they interact, and what meaning could be derived from their interdependence for both the host-body (that of the pig) and for the original owner of the guest-organ? For this guest cannot leave the guesthouse without bankrupting it. But before looking at the departure of the guest, let's look at its arrival. With the help of Jacques Derrida's analysis of hospitality between humans, I wish to look upon the process of creating a human organ within a pig embryo. By inserting the DNA of a human being into the DNA of a pig embryo, the idea of 'housing' takes shape, when you think of it through the
pieces of DNA, the tissue, the cells that get extracted from a human body. According to Levi Bryant, we have to think not in terms of beings but in terms of objects altogether. With his object orientated ontology I will stress that we can no longer think as humans and that pig-human experimentation shows us what is at stake if we do. In this chapter I will anthropomorphize - if you will - the material that is central to this experiment. From the moment the injection needle pulls out the bone marrow that is needed, the journey of the DNA begins. And it begins with an encounter.
According to Jacques Derrida, in matters of hospitality, the context in which the guest and possible host meet is of the utmost importance for their relationship. In “Of Hospitality” he derives from Kant a description of the term hospitality [Hospitalität (Wirtbarkeit)] as “the right of a stranger [bedeutet das Recht eines Fremdlings] not to be treated with hostility [en ennemi] when he arrives on someone else's territory” (qtd. in Derrida 4). According to Kant, every 'foreign other' must be treated with hospitality because it is a right for all human beings to ask another person for asylum. When describing
hospitality a certain lexicon appears: synonyms like 'welcoming', 'accepting', 'inviting', 'biding' someone or words like 'home', 'guest', 'gratitude', 'offer' come up to the surface. Everyone seems to agree on what it means. However, Derrida starts and ends his theoretic inquiry of the concept with the following statement: “We do not know what hospitality is [Nous ne savons pas ce que c'est que l'hospitalité]. Not yet.” (Derrida, Of Hospitality 6). For Derrida this is not a contradiction: “If we do not know what hospitality is, it is because this thing which is not something, is not an object of knowledge, nor in the mode of being-present, unless it is that of the law of the should-be or obligation, the law of hospitality, the imperative of which seems moreover contradictory or paradoxical” (10). In other words, 'hospitality' is not something that we can know because the concept does not lend itself to objective knowledge. Even though we use the concept as if we have a universal
understanding of its meaning, hospitality is not stable or determined; only laws on
hospitality are knowable. So, how to grasp hospitality, according to Derrida? We don't, we exercise it, and not knowing what it is is actually the only condition for us to do so.
“Hospitality n'est pas/is not” means: we don't know how to perform (unconditional) hospitality towards the other, because it doesn't exist yet, although we do strive towards it. Derrida says that in encountering the other, we need to be 'open' in order for hospitality to potentially arise. And this openness is not limited to the greeting of the human other. Derrida is attempting to open up even to animals. Animals are other and, because “every other is wholly other” (tout autre est tout autre) (Derrida, The Politics of Friendship 232),
the link must be open to them too. All others should recognise other 'others' as others, and here (im)possibilities of hospitality take place.
So - in leaving the ethical implications of this for the treatment of human beings towards animals, for what it is for a moment - if our doors should be open to animals, does that also mean their doors (bodies) should be open for us? If we should greet - for example - a pig with hospitality because of it being an 'other', can we expect the same treatment in return, since to this 'other' - that is, the pig - we are an 'other' as well? Can Derrida's attempt to include animals within the 'hospitality-framework' be used to promote the use of animal bodies for human purposes, if we consider them as hosts for our organs?
At first, I will depart from the idea (as seen above) that the pig as a being (so not only in its materiality) is the host in this process. It is on the receiving end. Later (in II Pigs with voices) I am going to explore different approaches to the merging of human and animal bodies since the pig is ultimately not the one that makes the decisions. But the idea of the pig as a host will hopefully expose certain things about the behaviour of human beings as guests and about a future where humans have access to animal’s bodies as a source for their own survival by merging together with them. This will provide a possible answer to the following question: does our biological material (my future organ-copy) have the right to enter the pig's territory and be greeted with hospitality?
The encounter between human material and the pig's body
The moment of the encounter starts with the biological human material (human stem cells) entering the animals DNA with the use of Crispr. Before the guest-organ enters, scientists paralyze the possibility of the body rejecting this foreigner by eliminating natural
mechanisms in the pig's DNA and giving it medicine that will help it to fully acknowledge the organ as its own. Our host has been poisoned, and must continuously be poisoned so that the guest can stay. The house has forcefully become 'hospitable'; the pig will from now on host the human material. However, according to Derrida, there is no such thing as a hospitable house because 'a house' has doors and windows, i.e. a threshold. Here he places the idea of hospitality on an 'aporetic crossroads' (Derrida, Of Hospitality 12). For in order for hospitality to arise those same doors are needed. A guest can only be a guest if a door has been opened for them, if a passage is being offered; without this action that invites the guest to the other side of the frontier, hospitality is impossible. So, the paradox of the door is that there needs to be one to establish a border between the two sides of it, and at the
same time, this door needs to have the ability to open - in the manner of customs at an airport or the border of two countries. Hospitality's possibility lies within the context of borders. They are a necessary condition for its possibility to arise. With the ‘door’ or ‘border’ open as wide as possible, we encounter Derrida's idea of “unconditional hospitality” (4), which means letting others in no matter what, without asking them for papers, without judging them, even when they are uninvited. All are to be treated not as enemies who must be expelled or exterminated, but as friends.
In this formulation, the assumption is that the guest chooses to 'knock on the door' in hopes of being granted entry. However in the case of xenotransplantation - as mentioned above - it is not the guest-organ itself (or the cells that it will grow from) that makes the appeal to the host-body, it is not even the human for whom the eventual organ is meant; the scientists and lawmakers are the ones that cross, open up or tear down the frontier. The 'doors' of the pigs are not so much being opened, as they are being incapacitated. But to enable an entry they have to be opened with medical and technological force. And, in order for the guest to stay inside, the defense mechanisms (the immune system) of the pig need to be controlled. Let's compare this situation with an acquaintance that takes place on a human level, for example with the refugee-crisis; letting a foreign organ 'house' itself within a body by putting its cells inside it would be similar to the government deciding that a refugee would come to live with you, without you having a say in this. 'You' in this case would be the 'host' to a 'guest' that has not been invited by you, but by someone else (that is, some institution). The medicine that will be given to the pig in order for it to not reject the new material would be analogous to the government giving (a small amount of) money (since we cannot be forced into changing our minds by using other means on a non-emotional level) to the human hosting a refugee. In the latter situation, we would not speak of hospitality; it would take place in an economic sphere of profit and loss.
So, without the potential of a social agreement, what happens to the concepts of 'host' and 'guest'? Derrida thinks of the concept of hospitality in relation to its opposite (if there is a difference there must be similarity as well). The opposite of the word hospitality (hostile) is already in the word. When someone is not accepted as a guest, without this right, he or she can enter one's "home," the "house" of the host, only as a "parasite" - as illegal, clandestine, subject to arrest or deportation (3). And yet, in the case of the guest-organ, deportation is not a possibility since the authorities themselves created this situation and would not subvert it. The guest-cells have entered via the hand of a scientist, and not by the hand of the original owner of the cells (the human being that needs a new organ). 'The
refugee' cannot help it that the government has decided that he moves in with you, can we fairly call this imposing then? Although the 'host' in this case is being imposed by the 'guest', the guest is not imposing itself on the host, or is it? The pig body indeed functions as a host-body, the guest being the foreign organ. It is housed by the pig, nurtured by the blood that is flowing through the host's body and the food and water it takes in. It entered without asking for housing, it entered before being invited in. The moment where hospitality could arise did not take place as guest and host did not have a so-called voice that would shape the encounter. There was no door to knock on because no-one could have opened it after the appeal, so in the moment of encounter between 'host' and 'guest', the idea of a frontier was completely ignored. According to Derrida, this eliminates the possibility of hospitality entirely, while at the same time this frontier is the only thing that could make it possible. On the necessity of this paradoxical threshold he writes: “My hypothesis or thesis would be that this necessary aporia is not negative; and that without the repeated enduring of this paralysis in contradiction, the responsibility of hospitality, hospitality tout court – when we do not yet know and will never know what it is – would have no chance of coming to pass, of coming, of making or letting welcome” (13). In the case of the 'pig's house' all human beings have access to the key to the door; through the scientists and doctors that hold the key, they can in principle come in when they need something from the pig. This has consequences for humanity and animality.
The death of the host
The meeting between the guest-cells and the host body did not establish a hospitable relationship. Both 'host' and 'guest' are not voluntarily playing their roles. An unhealthy encounter is the context from which the household - now one where pig and human share the same roof - forms and evolves. The original owner of the house, being the pig, should be - in a 'host and guest’-situation - the master that rules it. And because of the way they met, this supposedly hospitable living situation becomes problematic, since both the constitution and the implosion of hospitality rely on the aporia that the host governs the oikonomia (the law of the household) (4) and maintains his authority in its body. In these cases 'the pig masters' are not considered to be the masters of their household and they therefore have no authority, not even the authority to be 'a host' to an 'other'.
For Derrida, 'a potential host' is not necessarily being put against a wall; he (or it) is not obliged to grant entry to the guest. “He can indeed be turned away if this is done without
causing his death, but he must not be treated with hostility so long as he behaves in a peaceable manner in the place he happens to be” (5). Besides the fact that the pig has no option or tools to deny his human refugee-cells entry, by this law of hospitality he wouldn't be ethically able to reject the guest's call either because turning them away would indeed cause the death of the cells - and consequently the death of the human patient that needs a copy of his or her organ. So, here all parties are together, all feeding off of the blood that is flowing through the host's body and the food and water it takes in. At least for a certain amount of time.
According to Kant issues of hospitality become problematic when the guest claims rights that exceed a certain boundary. “The stranger cannot claim the right of a guest to be entertained [un droit de résidence], for this would require a special friendly agreement whereby he might become a member of the native household for a certain time. He may only claim a right of resort [un droit de visite]” (qtd. in Derrida 5). Eventually, the fully grown guest-organ will leave to return to its original owner. Of course, we cannot really speak of a return since the initial cells developed into something different than they were at the moment they left the human body. They changed, perhaps like a child returning to its parent's home from boarding school after a couple of months. Therefore we could speak of a temporary 'resort'. Either we decide that the inhabitation is temporary (it takes six months in order for the organ to reach the growth that is needed for it to be harvested), or we decide that the organ - actually the human too who it belongs to - becomes a member of the household by illegitimately claiming a right to be entertained. In the light of the organ leaving the body of its host, there is a problem in two different ways.
In the first case the eventual departure of the guest - which will cause the death of the host - causes the concept of hospitality to implode immediately. Since the only outcome of the departure is the death of the host, the guest undermines the authority of the host from the very beginning. However, if the organ reaches the status of a member of the household, if it grew up inside the pig - from DNA-cells to, for example, a liver - the relationship between the “Wirt/master of the household” and the resident will result in a different outcome. The consequence of death by departure would perhaps not touch upon or hurt the relationship between the supposed guest and host - which have become 'family', 'friends'. In this case, the pig (i.e. the rest of it) could sacrifice itself for this 'family member'. Its death in that case would not be a death in vain. The entanglement between all the pieces would simply lead to an 'all for one and one for all'-principle. My point here is that the latter is an a priori impossibility since this kind of relationship could have only been established with
mutual consent. However, in the process of inhabitation, this familiar structure did indeed form between the growing human organ and the host's own parts, out of necessity and so that the body could function accordingly. During the six months of growth every part of the pig's interior was of equal and vital importance. Hence, when departing, the whole 'family' suffers. A crucial link is missing and the rest cannot operate properly anymore. From both perspectives of the departure of the human guest-organ the only outcome is that the rest of the pig will stop working. What becomes more clear here is that the master of the house (the pig) is not a master at all. The only way to view the pig - in order for our human minds to cope with the interference where they take the lead and in order for them to ignore the voice of the pig - is to deny the mastery of the host. Because if the pig had a voice, its death would matter, even if it is a death without suffering - as we will see later. For all the 'sameness' that will float to the top during the rest of the process would make the death of an animal no less grievable than the death of a human being.
The human mind goes through stages in the experiment on the pig. During the six months that the pig grows up to be an adult pig, it can be an animal. The human beings taking care of it on the farm outside of the laboratory need to nurture it according to its pig needs. What the scientist or the people taking care of it see is an animal. In the beginning, when the DNA of the piglet embryo gets changed to make it grow a human organ, it is not what scientists see. In this part of the process, they just see the material. After the embryo gets placed in the womb of an adult pig, both mother and child can only be seen and treated as the farm animals they are. Nature does its job, the piglet gets born and walks the earth with the only difference that it is carrying an organ made out of matter other then it's original predisposition. As soon as the harvesting of the organ comes into sight the objectification of the pig returns to the stage. In objectifying the pig (the guinea pig of the experiment), firstly, ethical questions about its right to life, and so on, do not have to be answered. It would be different on an individual level: when a human being were to take care of an animal and then decides to slaughter it because he or she wants to make use of some of its part. In that case 'feelings' towards the animal and questions of right and wrong would come to pass. But, in the world of biotechnological research, these questions, of course, don't make sense up to the point that lawmakers decide where the boundaries are. Thus in this world, the life of the animal comes to an end, it dies but the death of the pig can no longer be conceptualized as death. The pigs are incubators and breeding machines.
Ethics on the 'breeding machine'
The human violently forces the pig's body to host his or her tool. Instead of using and investing in a mechanical 'oven' that can preserve the vital object, the animal as a derivative of the human original will function as the 'next best thing'. A thing; because although it is alive and forms the reason for the favoring, conveniently, that same living aspect of it is being 'blindspotted'. If a pig grows up carrying a foreign organ - or carrying foreign tissues - providing it with the resources to develop, without having a say in this, what does this mean? It becomes a breeding machine for an organ. The pig is deprived of agency, but in return, we expect to be given the hospitality of a living entity. And so it becomes a
borderless country to explore, in the scientist's mind at least. The territory (the pig's body) does have borders, but through human eyes, these are maybe not 'true' borders. Thinking of pig's bodies as countries of exploration leads to questions of imperialism. Human beings taking power over an (inhabited) territory that is not theirs to govern. Ignoring borders that have been set by nature. In the case of experimenting with animal bodies, the scientist and 'the people' are of course the ones that negotiate the terms.
However, we lose sight of the fact that in merging together with the pig - as we have seen - a familiar bond has formed where pig and human become equals in the body of the pig host. Inevitably this gives (or will give) new meaning to animality and humanity. The threshold between these two beings has been eliminated in the process and in thinking on xenotransplantation, which demands a host-guest-relationship. Even though we think we are imperializing the pig's country (without shame), there is also a price to pay for the
imperialist. In the next chapter I will dive deeper into the possible rebound effects of this mechanism. The enforced hospitality will also have consequences for the enforcer, once he or she (re)claims what originally stems from him or her, because the intervention that took place in the pig's body - although used as an incubator - leaves a mark.
There is only one option that will enable the justification of the use of pig's body for the creation of human organs that will save human lives: to view the pig not as an animal (deserving of some moral status) but as an object. To treat the pig's body as an object gives free rein to examine it only in a material sense and for its materiality. The animal is already a subaltern, but by using it as an organ-vessel, it is more and more deprived of a voice, ignoring that he might have one. But perhaps, objects have voices too.
The pig as an object; so what? We already eat them, right?
The treatment of animals for human gain is something we take for granted, as an
inevitability that is predetermined in the hierarchy between species. In the postmodern age, human beings still use claims of 'nature's ways' to justify imperialistic behaviour towards animals. We eat meat even though we could survive in a healthy manner without it and the mainstream opinion discards any animal rights organization as 'radical pet lovers'.
According to Levi Bryant, human beings' perspective of the world around them is based on a gap: a world versus human-gap. Through our human glasses, the world of objects becomes a mere prop or vehicle for human cognition, language, and intentions without contributing anything of its own (Bryant 22). In doing so we privilege human existence over the existence of non-human objects. This Kantian anthropocentrism has become the dominant attitude of contemporary philosophy and of society and its people. Contrariwise, Bryant introduces an 'object-oriented ontology' (based on Heidegger, an ontology that rejects privileging humans over non-humans) that he calls 'flat ontology'. For this, he makes four statements: first, no entity (or type of entity) is to be accorded special status as an origin or basic element of all other entities; second, the world does not exist (i.e., there is not a "single, harmonious unity" of all objects that is simply given, but rather there is a multiplicity of objects in a multiplicity of relations); third, no sort of relation between objects is to be privileged over other sorts of relation; and finally, entities either exist or they do not, so that all beings are "on equal ontological footing" (Bryant 246). In other words, the subject/object relation that we traditionally take to be fundamental should be challenged or subverted, according to Bryant. Any hierarchy among entities is rejected (hence the "flat" in 'flat ontology'). Beings are beings and “what pertains for one pertains for all” (282). What a being can or cannot do does not matter anymore to what pertains for them.
So, if we treat pigs as objects, this doesn't mean they do not have rights as objects. Furthermore, the term 'object' - as opposed to a subject - doesn't really apply anymore, within the framework of a 'flat ontology'. All entities are to be seen as objects - including human beings and social systems. They are as much objects as a rock or a neutron. The consequence of this is that all objects are connected, in the sense that they are open to other objects - by virtue of them being 'objects' not by virtue of being ‘other’. What emerges from this ontology is that at its core lies the recognition of otherness as a shared ontology of existence - and here, ethical considerations between humans and non-humans, as well as
between non-humans themselves, manifest. ‘Otherness’ meaning the sameness and equality of all objects in relation to all other objects. This is where Bryant and Derrida more or less meet each other: for - like Derrida - Bryant claims that this openness to the 'other' (or as Timothy Morton called it: 'the strange stranger') is not only an ethical rule that we should follow up on; it is an inescapable, ontological feature of the proper being of beings. To be, one might say, is both to be withdrawn and to be open to others (Norton 44). If we do not, we are acting upon the other side of the 'hospitality-medal', that is hostility. Every 'thing' in the world becomes something 'to us' humans. No other being or object has intrinsic value besides what value they could have for humans. I already stated that the pig - although being the host - does not have any mastery at all, but furthermore, it becomes the hostage of the humans in the process of housing a human organ. In using xenotransplantation, we are not withdrawn and open to the others as 'strange strangers'. Implications of this hostage situation for humans will become clear later. Closing off to 'others' is, in the end, untenable since this will ethically not remain valid. The ethical rules that we humans have are too obstinate to just be thrown away whenever technological developments require us to do so. Like Bryant already said, it is an inescapable feature that human beings live by. Therefore the emphasis is on openness. Current developments already force this insight upon us, especially when it comes to xenotransplantation. For by recognizing the similarities between humans and animals, are we not - unintentionally and paradoxically - forcing an end to the subject/object gap? Our 'anthropocentric' interest in the world and its objects - using them as our props for human gain - might lead to the realization that thinking in terms of 'otherness' actually leads to conclusions of 'sameness' and therefore to a different
relationship between the human and its tools. Hybridization will eventually point this out, as I will later try to show. But contemporary scientific interest already reveals that the
Anthropocene is here.
Conclusion: Does the pig have a voice?
So, now there are two ways of looking at the pig as a vessel containing a - yet to become - human organ. Firstly, as no more than a breeding machine: like a mechanical container that provides just the right circumstances if we alter the original design a bit, something equal to an egg-breeding machine. Here, the notion of hospitality can - if chosen to do so -
completely be ignored, since it denies the 'other' and resolves as a lack of recognition of 'otherness' altogether. However, as thought through the lens of 'onticology', this denial
cannot fully be justified if 'the strange stranger' is - from the human perspective - anything other than ourselves. Even as an object like a breeding machine, the pig continues to have some kind of voice that obligates us to be open to this 'other'. Therefore, this way of looking at the pig leads to the question: why not design a mechanical breeding machine that has no feelings, affects and agency to ethically take into account? And to this, we can only answer that we prefer growing our organs in a living entity. From here, immediately, the pig should gain (retain) it's moral status as a living being. And this leads to the second way of looking at the pig: animals as - to a certain degree - ethically considerable beings on the scale of hierarchy as set by human beings. Because of their ability to suffer, they have a right to be treated a certain way.
In either case - as we have seen - the idea of hospitality applies when seeing the pig as a moral being. For 'the other' as an animal and 'the other' as an object is deserving of hospitable treatment. The idea of the pig as a host exposes a great deal of insight into the behaviour of human beings as guests. They are parasitizing the body of the pig while considering themselves to be using what can legitimately be used: the world around them and the things that are part of it. Derrida's analysis of hospitality shows the absurdity of an à la carte approach to animals as 'others'. Ethically, hospitality should apply to every 'other' on the planet (and beyond) but what my analysis of the process of creating organs shows is that our approach to the pigs changes throughout the different phases. The practical actions needed at the start show the enforced entry, the imperialism on the pig’s body. As a parasite the human material enters uninvited. After this phase the body of the pig does not have any other option than to accept this 'stranger' and make the parasite part of the family. Otherwise the whole body stops operating. Every part needs every other part. Then, for a period of six months what goes on inside the pig’s body does not matter. A farmer treats the pig for what it is: a pig. And he receives it with hospitality. On the exterior nothing has changed; his behaviour is the same as any other pig and his needs can be met just the same as with the other pigs. In this phase the human that cares for it thinks within the human framework of moral hierarchy and decides that the pig should not suffer. Also, it is in everyone's best interest that the pig leads a normal to great animal life. When the time for harvesting the human organ comes closer, again there is a new phase. A pragmatic approach makes the farmers feelings of attachment go cold. Like raising a guide dog for the blind, when the puppy comes into your house you know it is going to leave eventually but for the time being it does not change the affection and work you put into raising the dog. But obviously the pig does not get passed on to the next caretaker that will treat it with the same love. The pig
farmer, the lab workers, the scientists become its enemies. Hospitality changes into
hostility. If at this point we can still speak of the pig as an 'other' being. But no. The goal in the end was to harvest a working human organ. The pig's life was only about a task he had to fulfill. But because of the period that it was an animal worthy of moral treatment (and maybe special treatment because this could benefit the growth of a healthy organ) this is already a huge paradox in this process of xenotransplantation.
If however we choose to not see the pigs as 'others' but as objects, Bryant prevents us from disregarding their voices. Because even non-living 'things' speak. Therefore animals and all other objects are on "equal ontological footing". Whatever is in the world is not a mere "prop" as he says, unless everything is, including humans. Privilege cannot exist anymore within his onticology. There is no world that exists, there are only relations
between objects that exist. And none of them has a different status than the other ones, since a human-centric perspective of the world cannot be proven to be veritable. And even more so, since nature shows how much similarity there is between the beings in the world - as is exposed by zooming in on the organ and its possibilities to form physical connections - putting the human in the centre of all thought (based on our ability of rational thought that humans themselves decided to be the reason for placing humans on the top of the ladder) does not make sense. Diving into the materiality that forms the basis of every 'thing' or object in the world - and makes them relate to each and every one of them - does make sense.
Our current ethical framework will become problematic in the future - in general - when human beings mix with these others or objects, because the consequences of using an animal change with whatever meaning we now give to them. Eventually, if everything is merging together in these kinds of mixing of species material, hospitality will not be able to be a human-centric privilege anymore, not only in daily life but also on the level of
materiality. If their matter receives our matter, the way we receive their matter leads to certain obligations. Therefore it makes us wonder what kind of future would a future be where humans have the access to animal bodies as a source for their own survival by
merging together with them, and thus - by accident - opening the moral link to other species while paradoxically using them as estranged pieces without any moral worth. If everything is an object, like Bryant states, and if all the objects are merging, entangled and connected, hospitableness should apply to every being (object) of the planet; the right to be received as a guest would count for every other object, because like the workings of a body (and the system of organs) this relationship is already there. No part can function without the other
part; so, every part is part of the other part. This might actually be an argument that can be used to promote the mixing of species, if human beings would embrace the implications that could finally justify the current attempts. Because, to answer the question that I formulated at the beginning - does our biological material have the right to enter the interior of the pig and to be treated with hospitality? Perhaps, if the gift of hospitality was in principle returned to it and to every other object. Thought through the entanglement of the world, yes we might have the right to use the pig's body for these purposes. "Use" – in the negative sense - would in that case not even apply. But, are human beings capable of thinking themselves through their own entanglement with the world? To that question, I want to find an answer in the next chapter through the eyes of "xeno-patients" that are already in the present dealing with an exchange of human and animal matter.
II - Pigs with ‘voices’
Once a pig-human chimera (a pig carrying a human organ) is created, a space of trans-corporeality has been opened, a space which redefines the human and the non-human as material, because it emphasizes the overlap between them. The possibility of them merging is a given seeing what biotechnology has already proven (the successful growth of a human organ in piglets). But before thinking about pig-humans or human-pigs as hybrids, pigs with human material and vice versa, and their consequences, let's see what it might mean for a human being to obtain an organ via harvesting an organ (that stems from his or her own cells) from a pig, and thus, to carry a bodily object that was not in the body from the beginning, even though it is a copy of his or her own original organ. What of the pig-host accompanies the travel of the matter to the new and yet original human 'home'? Does its voice resonate within the human recipient? And, if so, how?
To get an idea of what it might mean to carry a pig-harvested copy of a human organ, let's first of all look at this organ as 'foreign material', foreign material being any material other than that which equipped the body from birth: so, anything that is not original. Because even though the human organ is generated by an individual's DNA, it became foreign by being away and by it being 'brought up' by a pig. To help shed light on the possible experiences humans in the future might have when they receive a copy-organ from a pig, I want to look upon receiving foreign matter in a more general sense. For already, people have received organs and biological material from pigs, like kidneys and cells that can help a brain that is affected by Parkinson's disease. These kinds of treatment take place in the margins, as a last resort. What can be learned - for my purposes - from the experience of patients in the present that have crossed the species barrier? Susanne Lundin (professor of cultural anthropology at Lund University) has interviewed patients with Parkinson's disease that chose to use pig cells, tissue or organs in hopes of curing
themselves. By doing this, her aim was to examine how it feels to live with body parts that are not originally yours. This, in order to discuss how the intervention of biotechnology shapes identity and attitudes towards 'personhood' and bodies. Xenotransplantation is still a controversial treatment because it involves genetically modifying animals but also because of the idea of something animal joining a human body. Lundin wants to research how these relationships between humans and animals - under the influence of biotechnology - produce new cultural meanings.
By reading some of her patient interviews, I will gain information on what it means to live with something 'other' inside your body. In the previous chapter, my focus was on the use of the pig's body. Now I wish to elaborate on the travelling organ (and tissue). An object that as a body part becomes part of more than one body. What does it pass from one body to the next? In analyzing the transfer through the experience of human patients currently being treated with other forms of xenotransplantation, I will in this chapter search to find an answer to the question(s): do organs (and cells) speak? If so, how do they speak? And what about their former (pig) hosts? Nancy Tuana's notion of 'viscous porosity' will help navigate through the problems that arise when species are mixing. As an approach to materiality as connected to the social, (the political and the historical) this will serve to lay out a blueprint for further discussion on creating and harvesting organs from the bodies of pigs for human gain. Eventually, I will try to demonstrate what it means for both animal and human to merge together through this biotechnology. But not yet. I believe pigs do have a voice that should count, but the same goes for human material bodies. The organ as material that changes house tells it all.
The voice of the old host: identity issues
Humans (besides pigs) are guinea pigs in this biotechnological research on
xenotransplantation, and only the future will be able to assess the results. For, when all is said and done, the people who are now being treated with animal organs, transgenic cells or tissue - are also the test-subjects for scientific research. Fears about safety and medical risks are common among these patients since the long-term effects of the procedures are as of yet unknown. Also, there is a fear of transferring animal viruses to people. A patient that had just been introduced to the idea of treatment with a porcine organ expressed her
considerations to Lundin: “The animal organ must be cleaned and sterilized and everything, and if it is I don't think you can say no. I mean, I would have to have guarantees that there is no infection, that no animal virus can be transferred to people this way'. Her hesitant “I don't think you can say no” (Lundin 12), shows the problematic essence of the issue, the crux. Rationally, this animal organ will allow the patient to live a longer life or even continue living at all, but the choice for this solution is not self-evident. Feelings that there must be a catch to all this, the fear of unforeseeable medical risks, make patients doubtful. Because what do the doctors and scientists really know? And how much control can they truly have over these cells, tissues and organs once they are inserted into patients' bodies? Despite the
fact that patients can gain so much with these kinds of xenotransplant procedures - perhaps making the difference between life and death - the controversiality of the idea makes one be in an ambivalent relationship with this kind of salvation.
The need to cure diseases - the wish to live and the fear of death - is, of course, the fuel for scientific research on xenotransplantation. The patients’ body is under attack by a disease that entered the interior and that could destroy it all together. By letting something else in too, there might be hope of conquering it. The American AIDS patient Jeff Getty was given bone marrow from a baboon in 1995 - in hopes that the cells would eliminate the virus in him since baboons' immune systems are resistant to HIV. Getty was the first person to receive this kind of transfusion from another species. And it caused a huge ethical
discussion on cross-species experimentation. However, he didn't hesitate to use what biotechnology had to offer at the time. “Society should be bold enough to experiment”, he declared. “This is a war!” (12-13). He vocalized the idea of the body having to conquer something that came from the outside, so, the idea of the human body being under attack by something external that is not supposed to be on this 'ground'. By allowing something else to come in as well - something that can fight it - the body becomes a battleground for this war. He eventually died of another war: cancer. However, the bone marrow procedure did, in the end, turn out to be unsuccessful. Of course, Getty had nothing to lose anymore. He could only gain from any experiment. And his case is exemplary of the use of
xenotransplantation as the 'last resort'. When it is a matter of life or death, why not seek a solution in a controversial treatment. According to a doctor, the trial reflected the level of desperation surrounding AIDS at the time (NYTimes.com).
Despair leads to seeking salvation in marginal treatments. Patients look elsewhere for an answer to their health problems. Even though some experiments have been
successful; when they are successful and patients are benefiting from it, it doesn't
necessarily mean that it is not - at the same time - problematic for them. Views of patients on their own bodies change when the interior changes. This happens when the body becomes a battleground where cells of another person or animal fight the sick cells, but maybe even more if an organ comes in to join the body permanently. A diabetic patient reflects on receiving a pig kidney along the following lines: “It feels like something big and meaty. And I am wondering what way it can change me as a person. Yes, not that I'll develop a tail or anything like that—but that something will happen to me all the same” (Lundin, "Creating identity with biotechnology" 5). The pig kidney changes the awareness the patient has of his interior and this influences his self-understanding. At the same time a
kind of extreme sensitivity arises within the patient; the new organ is viewed as having an incredible weight and the ease with which it falls into place can be shocking. Cultural theorist Paul Virilio pointed out that patients sometimes experience a transplanted organ as moving around in the body in an autonomous manner, as if it is floating inside. It is
connected but at the same time our human conception of it disconnects the foreign organ from the rest of the body (Lundin, "The Boundless body" 15). Similar feelings arise when an organ is obtained via allotransplantation (from one human to another) or when patients receive a 'necro kidney' from a dead person. When a human being receives a transplant of whatever kind, the body comes to be viewed in a different light. The transplant seems to have a will of its own that cannot be controlled. Whether it settles in or not is out of the patients’ hands. The body that has always been a given and coherent unity is suddenly looked at with a biological or medical gaze. It turns out to be a flexible biological device (15) that can integrate foreign matter. And with this unity falling apart, the mind is also subject to fragmentation. For an authentic human being needs a perfect interior (qtd. Dorothy Nelkin and Susan Lundee (1995) in Lundin). The longing for that authenticity is challenged by the integration of strange organs and this can lead to feelings of uncertainty or negative reformulations of identity. It seems to also strengthen the division between body and soul (cf Turkle 1996; Petchesky 1987).
When it comes to animal body parts the challenge is perhaps somewhat bigger. Besides the identity issues that occur with any form of transplantation, the hardest part for the patients seems to be to accept that there is something animal inside them, something they would rather not think about too much. This enforces 'othering' the new material even more. In one of the cases Lundin refers to, the teenage daughter of a patient explained she had mixed feelings about xenotransplantation since "she thought it was a bit disgusting". "Pigs are filthy animals and you can't have that in your body", she said (18). This ‘othering’ the pig’s material is a way to cope with the idea, but causes problems of identity if it is not treated on the psychological level. Luckily, there are methods to treat feelings of not falling together anymore with the body after a xenotransplant. Methods to make the mind accept them as well. For example, grabbing a pencil and paper and drawing out their own interior is a way for patients to transform the 'alien organ' into something concrete and something of their own. Also, in screening the body live on an ultrasound monitor and seeing all the organs - including the transplant - the patient can get to know his or her insides (again). By naming them and describing the organs the body gets reconfigured. Lundin's patients seemed to her to focus on the appearance of the new material (14). After contemplating the
new permanent guest and its place within the whole, the organs that first felt 'meaty' and threatening become a bit more manageable. Cells, on the other hand, are harder to grasp, since there is not a clearly outlined object.
In comprehending what it means to have porcine cells in your body Parkinson's patients – as mentioned above - tend to create an image of the body as a battleground for the war that needs to be fought - just like Getty. The cells are the body's helpers, which have been brought in to assess the problem that the body itself cannot solve. But, these soldiers might take possession of you: "Like small piglets," says Eva, "tiny pig cells that I have no control over and that can pump something animal-like into my body" (Lundin, "Creating identity with biotechnology" 5). In Eva's experience or thoughts the porcine cells have agency, they act and in doing so, might influence her body and who she is. The doctor who had performed the operation tried to reassure his patient with the words: "You have surely urinated out the cells a long time ago, and if not, we certainly don't transplant souls in this hospital" (5). But some recipients and scientists argue that there is something like cell memory. Originally the term is used to describe how bodies remember or save information on a special antigen, even decades after they 'learned' it through a vaccination. The memory of the cell could in theory also contain the donor's thoughts and feelings (Chopra in Lundin "The Boundless Body" 18). And in the experience of the patients, they do or they might have a collection of these memories. The new body part seems to have some voice, one that will now always have a say in its new house. The pigs that 'gave' some of their body parts seem to 'speak' to the patients they are helping. Their voices resonate in their transferred materiality even if you would be hesitant in attributing a 'memory' to cells that transport the feelings and effects of the pig to a human. I am not sure if I believe that cells collect the experiences of a pig, but what I do think is that it does not matter if they do or don't. What matters is what matters to the patients that form whatever ideas about their pig helper. Therefore, even if the material is not marked by the memories of the pig, the person on the receiving end makes the pig tag along anyway for the journey. Because the pig was a living thing, it matters to the patient; the pigs have a voice in their conception and because of that, they have a voice, as if the pig is still there, accompanying the materiality. "Thoughts were expressed by the wife of a man with Parkinson's disease. Doctors operated porcine fetal cells into the man's brain; the wife was in favor of the operation but admitted amidst tearful laughter that as a Jew she found it repugnant that her husband had a pig in his body" (18-19). There is not only biological material inside the husband, in the wife's perspective. Where the cells (or the organs) come from has a certain meaning to people involved in
(xeno)transplantation. Receiving a dog's organ results in different feelings and thoughts than a rat's organ would evoke. A pig stands for something and knowing the origin of the
materiality means that it speaks to the new owner. It joined the human being (the pig is in his body) and what that might mean is unclear, uncertain and therefore unpleasant.
People could condemn xenotransplantation out of religious reasons; but even if you do not and accept it as a (last resort) solution, still there can be disgust or a negative
judgment like: why would you put something animal in your body? It is not right! Why someone might state that it is not right is a interesting question to discuss. Later, I will go deeper into this way of approaching the issue, that is a sign of the obstinate speciesism that lies underneath. But now let's see how the human body greets and 'hosts' the pig cells or organs. So far I have been talking about our 'minds'. However, when looking more closely at our bodies, our materiality, how does the bodily part of a human being 'feel' about meeting its new biological housemates?
Viscious bodies, porous bodies: the perspective of materiality
These cases show a paradoxical nature of bodies and the bodily. The patient's bodies are capable of accepting animal matter, but at the same time resistant. On the one side the bodily is narrow-minded, and on the other hand, it is 'open' to the foreign material, the other. Nancy Tuana (DuPont/Class of 1949 Professorship in Philosophy and Women's Studies, The Pennsylvania State University) uses the term 'viscious porosity' for this state of being (Tuana 188). According to her, bodies are both 'viscious', that is, inevitably connected in wanted or unwanted relations, and 'porous', that is, having 'pores' and therefore an openness. In the bodily experience of the organ recipients, this is quite noticeable. Apart from the 'feelings' and emotions of the patients. The body itself shows ambivalence towards external material. It is open to incorporating new parts, but this doesn't go without saying. The organ needs to connect to the bodily system that is already there in its new host. The fact that this is possible shows the porousness of bodies. However, when a donor-organ (of whatever kind) gets operated into a body, there is always the fear that it will be rejected. Perhaps the body is - for whatever reason - not too fond of this specific organ. Here, it will show its viscosity: a resistance to the integration of the new body part. With all its force the immune system will destroy the transplanted organ or tissue. Every organ transplant is accompanied by an array of medicines to help make the transplant successful. In the case of a rejection, medicines (controlling the viscosity of the system) could even prevent the organ from
needing to be removed; a chronic rejection follows, but the organ still functions as it should for the rest of the body.
Here we encounter the agency of the material. And according to Tuana, we should take that into account. To her, the world consists of complex phenomena that are
intertwined in dynamic relationality. She calls her view an "interactionist ontology" and she posits it as an alternative to the nature/culture ontology that she (and with her, all new materialists) considers to be a problematic perspective. Even though it is sometimes
necessary to make distinctions between those poles, we just should not see them as 'natural kinds' or as proof of dualisms. Instead, we should focus on understanding the "rich
interactions between beings through which subjects are constituted out of relationality" (Tuana 191). And this is what becomes very visible in the scientific approach to human and non-human bodies. Seeing the phenomena (the world and everything in it) as, in principle, 'viscious' and 'porous' will open us up to rethinking them. Tuana employs the term 'viscious porosity' rather than 'fluidity':
Viscosity is neither fluid nor solid, but intermediate between them. Attention to the porosity of interactions helps to undermine the notion that distinctions, as important as they might be in particular contexts, signify a natural or unchanging boundary, a natural kind. At the same time, "viscosity" retains an emphasis on resistance to changing form, thereby a more helpful image than "fluidity," which is too likely to promote a notion of open possibilities and to overlook sites of resistance and opposition or attention to the complex ways in which material agency is often involved in interactions, including, but not limited to, human agency (193-194).
The porosity of the interactions between pig and human bodies - the fact that they can form connections just like material of specimens of the same species can form - puts materiality on the main stage. The pigs as animals have a certain kind of agency; their leftovers (their matter) could have it too. But that does not have to make us fearful. On the contrary, it can be helpful in a broader sense; in our understandings of the world, human culture and ethics, it can help us “overlook sites of resistance” (194) as well. By acknowledging the agency of the material and the porosity (in the sense of mutually influential) between phenomena, Tuana believes our understanding of materiality, and how it is related to sociality and culture, can be reconfigured. For categories like 'natural', 'human-made', 'biological', 'artificial' do not make any sense in this ontology. She argues for "an interactionist account
that shifts the debates from "realism" vs. "social constructivism" to emergent interplay, which precludes a sharp divide between the biological and the cultural." Since
"Nature/culture is a problematic ontology—not just for the human world, but for what is, as well as what might yet be" (189). Human patients receiving an animal organ could benefit from the insight that their bodies are a place of 'visicous porosity'. Seeing themselves for the materiality that they are can open them up to embracing the materiality of 'others' as their own. To acknowledge the interplay between all materiality means to prevent any kind of privileging like culture over nature, the mind over the body or the human over the animal.
Further, the fact that our bodies are open to receiving 'foreigners' changes the conception of the whole system that humans are a part of. Since the beginning of science, nature has provided us with information about the logical apparatus of the world around us. This, together with human hands and minds gave tools that benefit humankind. In
approaching the human body, the only aim has been to protect it from externalities that might harm it, or to use external means to improve it. The next step is to embrace the openness of our material bodies, which expose how few distinctions there are between us and what we consider to be 'other species'.
Transgenic animals in the now: when are we?
Experiments on transgenic animal hybrids expose how ambivalent species-categories are. As we produce more and more hybrids for the purpose of research or economic gain (like more milk or a different color of wool), genes of different species show unexpected and surprising similarities. However, the response of the scientists that are busy with the
inquiries seems to function on a wavelength that makes true insights on species impossible. What is mostly revealed when looking at the conclusions drawn from biotechnological research in the present are the glasses of speciesism that pertinaciously accompany the researchers. Instead of opening their eyes to what the materiality tells us about 'sameness' and kinship between species, they focus on nuancing whatever difference is left. And even when they overcome these differences on the level of the physical, the cultural - that which cross-species experimentation exposes - hardly has any implications. Moreover, it seems to make them even more blind and - as I will show - positions them on a quest to enforce these boundaries by simply creating new categories. Especially when humans become a part of the experiments, there is a major blind spot. And of course, it has to do with power. Human gain drives people to cross-breed animals and leads to a quest where we merge together
with them. But what are the consequences of ignoring the implications of the similarities in genes when it eventually comes to hybrids that are partly human?
Which transgenic hybrids have been created so far and what can be said about them? One of the most significant animal chimeras is the 'cama', the result of cross-breeding a male dromedary camel and a female llama. It was produced via artificial insemination in Dubai in 1998, with the aim that this animal would produce more wool than a regular llama, because crossing it with a camel would make the animal larger and stronger. Much of its characteristics are as of yet unknown. As far as is known, only five camas have been created. A major milestone in chimeric research occurred in 1984 when sheep embryos showed to form chimeras with goat embryos. By combining the embryos from a goat and a sheep, a 'geep' was produced that survived to adulthood. However, most attempts to create a sheep-goat hybrid have failed, resulting in the death of a lot of embryos (In Search of the
Geep, NYTimes.com). What is remarkable is that I cannot find any answer to the question of
why. Why scientists wanted to make a 'geep' is unknown. More recently in April 2018 a nanny goat in Ireland called Daisy gave birth to the only 'geep' twins (named 'This' and 'That') and alive at this moment (Irishtimes.com). They were not created in a laboratory, but naturally produced when a Cheviot ram impregnated Daisy, a sign of nature's willingness to mix species. Contrary to genetic chimeras, creatures that emerge through natural
reproduction are called intergeneric hybrids. Since the beginning of time, nature has created a whole range of 'intergeneric hybrids', such as: the 'Wolphin' (killer whale and a bottlenose dolphin), the 'Zeedonk' or 'Zonkey' (zebra and a donkey), 'Ligers' and 'Tigons' (lions and tigers), the 'Zony' or 'Zetland', and 'Beefalo' (American bison and a domestic cow). Of course the mule is also a product of a natural crossing (horse and donkey). As the double naming already shows, sometimes it is difficult to decide from which of the originals the hybrid mostly draws. The attempt to categorize them in anyway is a sign of the severe dualistic ontology that is well ingrained in Western thought. Because what these kinds of crossing actually show is how difficult and forced it is to categorize species. These examples of new species are the result of natural reproduction. They expose the unfixed boundaries between different kinds of animals. At the same time the 'viscious porosity' of nature's reproductive mechanisms comes to the fore. Although a lot of species can
potentially mix (porousness within nature), nature also employs a trick. Since intergeneric hybrids are most likely to be infertile, nature seems to not want them to reproduce (a sign of nature's viscosity) despite their similarities. But mankind does not really care about nature's plan. And with gene modification there are no obstacles in the way of executing their own
