Throughout history people have used animals as a means for their survival. We as a species have run horses into the ground to get from place to place, we’ve slaughtered countless cows, pigs and chickens for food, and we’ve hunted animals such as beavers for their pelts, and those are only the most basic examples of humans using animals for their own basic needs. I don’t believe that this situation involving chimpanzee hearts is any different; it is using an animal to benefit a human being. I don’t really believe that there is an ethical issue here but I don’t believe that the use of chimpanzee hearts is the best way to do things because they are an endangered species and it would only be a temporary solution at best.

I don’t believe that taking the chimps heart is wrong when it is absolutely necessary, I don’t believe that this procedure should be used in order to make someone more comfortable while waiting for a transplant, I believe it should be used when the person will not survive otherwise. This is simply due to the lack of hearts available, both human and chimp. I’ll go even further than that to say that I believe it is wrong to put an animal’s life over a human’s. Now don’t get me wrong I love animals as much as the next person and animals dying is sad, but letting a human being die because you don’t want to harm an animal is not an idea I am comfortable with.