This is the analysis tab for the Monster Organ Trafficking trope.
What kind of beings qualify for this trope?
The primary distinction between Monster Organ Trafficking and Human Resources/Sapient Fur Trade is that the beings are not sapient.
Sapience is a pretty nebulous term both from a biological and a philosophical point of view. However, since we are dealing with concepts born from fictional media, we can draw from Sci-Fi jargon, which presents us with the term sophont, synonymous with sapient.
In other words, a sapient being must be self-aware as well as possess an elevated cognitive capacity. For example, a cat doesn't recognize itself when looking at its reflection in a mirror, but an octopus does. The cat is not self-aware, but the octopus is. The octopus is not quite sapient (from the Sci-Fi definition, not current scientific debate on the topic). The octopus is just higher on the scale of cognitive power but still doesn't equal that of a human.
On top of that, a sapient being might be sentient.
Sentience is the ability to feel — some organisms, like bacteria, are capable of perceiving stimuli such as light, nutrient concentration, etc. Others, like animals, not only perceive the stimuli but translate them as some sort of physical sensation (pleasure, pain, etc). Most animals (if not all of them) are sentient, bacteria are not.
So, for a being to qualify for Monster Organ Trafficking, it can not be sapient (aka a sophont). Meanwhile, it doesn't really matter whether is sentient — thus, monstrous plants with ambiguous sentience (for a lack of a nervous system) still qualify.
Ethical and storytelling implications of this trope:
Exploiting resources from nonsapient creatures can be regarded very differently In-Universe, and the reasons for each particular viewpoint might or might not be related to the "What Measure Is a Non-Human?" debate.
Take Harry Potter for example. Potion ingredients are extracted from magical creatures (sentient) and plants (nonsentient). The implications are never even mentioned save from one example (Voldemort drinking unicorn's blood), but that's more a case of the unicorns being regarded as too pure to be slain and less of it being related to their sentience. Dragon blood, for example, seems to be a perfectly fine material to use in all kinds of stuff.
Contrast that with an example in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The Republic finds a lizard-like creature with impenetrable hide — neither blasters nor lightsabers can pierce it. Palpatine gets the idea to harvest its hide to use it in armor for the clones. This would kill the creature, thus causing the extinction of its species. Padmé, on the other hand, argues that it is wrong, not only because of the extinction matter but also because the process is painful for the creature and they have no right to do so. Thus, it discusses the matter of What Measure Is a Non-Human? spurned from a Monster Organ Trafficking situation.
In neither case the creatures are considered to be sapient nor they do display any hint of being so. Nonetheless, they are shown to be sentient and that adds a layer, intended or not. In case it was intended, this trope may be discussed, invoked, or even defied. In the case it wasn't, it might be a matter of the author simply glossing over the topic — presenting it as part of the worldbuilding but not offering commentary on it.
What if the beings are actually sapient?
In a straight example of Sapient Fur Trade, the (sapient) harvesters must know their (also sapient) targets are sapient even if they show utter disregard for their lives. Think of it like how black people were considered some centuries ago — they were utterly dehumanized but no one except for very sheltered or fanatic people denied that they were sapient to some extent. Most considered them barely human, and that's the key.
On the other hand, the harvesters might genuinely don't know that their targets are sapient. It's not that they are denying it like in the example above — they truly thought the being they are exploiting is not a fellow sophont. In that case, we have a subversion of Monster Organ Trafficking on our hands.
If the harvesters keep exploiting their targets anyway, then they are engaging on Sapient Fur Trade as well, just not from the beginning.
The Sapient Fur Trade case more or less treats the situation as morally abhorrent as part of the premise; most readers are sapient, too, and can imagine themselves being farmed for parts, but can take reassurance in their ability to recognize and condemn it as wrong.
Such a revelation, however, has a huge impact on the narrative and dials up the psychological horror up to eleven. Empathy toward the victim increases exponentially if it's a fellow sophont. It cannot be rationalized as a necessary evil, that the targets are "just livestock".
It raises the question of whether the viewer can trust their ability to identify what sapience looks like in an inhuman species, and whether it's safe to base their sense of moral judgment on something as fallible and fickle as their personal sense of empathy.
A veritable Nightmare Fuel, isn't it?
