Bioethics in Tests and Research

respond to the following discussion given: The assumption that it will always be immoral to experiment on humans, regardless of whether they’re in a PVS/comatose state, is based in the stubborn assertion that human lives must always trump other lives. In using other animals as surrogates for suffering through experimentation, we exercise this superiority (which we’ve kindly granted ourselves) with limited justification. In the case of comatose human patients, clearly the potential distress and horror of their relatives at their loved one being experimented on must be accounted for. However, if potentially life-saving treatments are to result, this would surely be the more convincing argument. Given the differences between humans’ and other animals’ biology and processing of certain proteins/foods/chemicals, bypassing the risk of side-effects in humans in cases where something has only been tested on animals is highly valuable. When it is unlikely a person is ever to recover their sentience, conducting valuable research on them should be allowed.