Cardiac xenotransplantation and bioethics committees: normative foundations for interspecies justice in translational medicine

Fernando A. Ramos-Zaga, Dirección de Investigación, Innovación y Sostenibilidad, Universidad Privada del Norte, Lima, Perú

Cardiac xenotransplantation has evolved from preclinical research into clinical reality through genomic editing technologies that produce pigs with ten or more genetic modifications, creating entities whose ontological status challenges the binary taxonomies of biomedical law. This article analyzes the normative sufficiency of the classical principlist model regarding the ontological reconfiguration of the transgenic pig in cardiac xenotransplantation, establishing an interspecies justice framework to strengthen the deliberative legitimacy of clinical bioethics committees. A critical theoretical examines the normative adequacy of classical principlism concerning the reconfigured porcine model and articulates a relational ethical paradigm based on the capabilities approach and the dignity of the creature, including its implications for the deliberative praxis of clinical bioethics committees. The analysis demonstrates that the transgenic pig constitutes a liminal entity whose induced vulnerability and disrupted telos underscore the structural insufficiency of anthropocentric principlism. A relational matrix grounded in asymmetric responsibility and biocentric dignity provides the normative architecture required to govern interspecies interdependence, while the operationalization of ontological traceability protocols and multicriteria evaluation systems reconfigures committee deliberation. Interspecies justice emerges as a constitutive condition of deliberative legitimacy in cardiac xenotransplantation, necessitating a shift in ethical oversight from anthropocentric adjudication toward a relational architecture responsive to ontological harms.

Keywords: Cardiac xenotransplantation. Transgenic pig. Principlism. Interspecies justice. Bioethics committees.