Head transplants are a terrible idea

The ethics of transplanting a head or a body are mind-blowing (pun fully intended). This surgery, which is estimated to cost upwards of $13 million, obviously wouldn’t be for the skinny guy who wants a more muscular body or the obese person who wants a quick weight-loss solution (what’s a quicker way to lose weight than by swapping bodies, right?). It would be intended for people with debilitating motor-neuron diseases like Stephen Hawking or with other terminal and incurable illnesses.

So before even discussing the technical aspects (which are probably insurmountable anyway), there are numerous questions that need to be asked that are likely impossible to answer: 

• Prior to attempting this feat in humans, we would have try it using small animals followed by monkeys. What ethics review board would approve such a thing? Would this not be considered animal cruelty? 
• If the trials were approved and then proved successful, who then would be the first human guinea pig?