In a sterile facility where pigs are genetically engineered to grow kidneys for human transplants, the animals begin to awaken to their own awareness. As they grapple with their fate, one pig named Rhea questions the morality of a practice that treats them as nothing more than organs to be harvested.
In a sterile, humdrum facility nestled far from the bustle of city life, pigs lived in pens that seemed to stretch on forever. The building had no windows—no sign of a sky beyond the cold metal walls. These pigs were not like others. Genetically altered to have kidneys that could function in humans, they were bred for one purpose: to save lives.
At first, they didn’t know. They were born as any pig would be, a little confused and disoriented in their new world. But over time, something strange happened. It wasn’t immediate, but the more they grew, the more they realized. They had memories—strange flashes of vivid images, feelings of unease that lingered as they matured. They began to understand that they weren’t like the pigs they saw in the pens next to them. They were different. They were valuable, their bodies engineered for a purpose. Their kidneys were meant to be harvested, and their lives… forfeit.
Among them was a pig named Rhea. She was large, with bright eyes that scanned the sterile halls of the facility, always alert, always aware. She had learned to fear the human caretakers who walked by, their expressions impassive, their movements swift and mechanical. They spoke in hushed tones to each other about the "progress" they were making in their studies, oblivious to the growing understanding among the pigs.
Rhea’s awareness had come slowly, in fragments. She began to see patterns—the way certain humans would stop by her pen, smiling faintly as they checked her vitals, offering her food with soft voices, but the food never came in the form of sustenance. No, it was always medicine. The drugs that kept them alive longer, kept them growing. She could hear the hum of machinery in the back, but it wasn’t until she was old enough that she understood what it meant.
There were others before her. Those who had been chosen. Their bodies had been sliced open with sterile precision, their kidneys removed, packaged, and sent out into the world, destined for human lives. Some never came back. They never saw the pens again.
One night, Rhea heard the sound of a door opening. The faint shuffle of footsteps grew closer. She froze. She recognized the sound of the human caretakers moving through the rows of pens, but there was something different in their voices tonight. There was an undertone of urgency, fear perhaps. She had seen this before.
A shadow loomed over her pen. The door clicked open, and a man entered, clipboard in hand. His face was half-hidden in the darkness, but his eyes were cold, distant. He looked at her without emotion.
“It’s her turn,” he said, his voice flat.
Another figure appeared in the doorway—this one taller, with a grim expression. Rhea’s heart raced. She didn’t know what would happen, but she could feel the panic building in her chest. She was next. She had seen others like her, those with the engineered kidneys, being led down the long hallway to the sterile rooms where their bodies would be harvested for parts. The procedure was routine for the humans, but for Rhea and the others, it was nothing short of a death sentence.
She stood frozen, her body unwilling to move. Something in her soul screamed for escape, for life, but her legs wouldn’t cooperate. The two humans entered the pen, their movements too swift, too practiced. She felt the cold steel of a needle in her neck, the rush of something that made her feel distant, disoriented. The last thing she saw before the world tilted away was the man’s face—pale, expressionless—and the thought that crossed her mind in the darkness: Am I not a life too?
In the operating room, the man stood over the table, his gloves slick with the sterile sheen of the procedure. He didn’t look at the pig's body, not really. The kidneys were what mattered—his hands moved quickly, efficiently, disconnecting the organ that had been so carefully cultivated for this very moment. His thoughts were consumed with numbers, with the lives that would be saved by this transplant. But somewhere, deep down, he knew—he couldn’t push away the feeling that something was wrong.
"Another success," he muttered to himself, but his voice had a hollow quality to it. It was the same thing he had told himself after every surgery. The same thing the others had said, every time.
But was it truly a success? Would the lives saved by the transplant erase the weight of what had been done? Did those pigs—those sentient, aware creatures—deserve to suffer this fate for the sake of human lives? Could they ever truly justify it?
Rhea’s kidney was now inside a human body. And somewhere, a person would live because of her. But Rhea’s final thoughts still lingered in the dark corridors of the facility. Was it worth it? Would they ever see the pain they caused? Would they ever hear the silent cries of those they had condemned in the name of progress? I human life more important?
The questions echoed, unanswered, in the cold, silent room. Does the act of saving a human life justify the pain and sacrifice of those who are deemed expendable?
Is it any different than raising cows for food? The ethics are similar in that both involve the use of living beings for human benefit. In both cases, the animal suffers, and without definitive knowledge of their awareness, it becomes difficult to judge the morality of using them for human benefit. But it raises the broader ethical question of whether consuming animals is necessary or justified in a modern context, given alternatives.
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