Pros and Cons - Debbie Newman, Ben Woolgar 2014

Animal experimentation and vivisection, banning of
Section E. Social, moral and religious

Human treatment of animals can be a highly emotive subject. A dolphin trapped and killed in a trawler net, a rat deliberately mutated by genetic engineering, a red deer hunted to the point of terrified exhaustion and shot, a rabbit with eyes and skin blistered from chemical and cosmetic tests, a captive lion robotically pacing its tiny cage at the circus or zoo — all of these are distressing images that arise in the context of debates about the human treatment of animals. But what are the arguments behind these emotional appeals? The Australian philosopher Peter Singer was one of the first, in the 1970s, to argue that animals have rights and that they should be treated with the respect due to a human animal. This is still a contentious claim, but one that more and more people seem to accept.The arguments on ’animal rights’ in Section A consider whether animals have rights, and whether, if they do, we should be doing more to recognise and respect those rights. We currently use animals from bacteria to primates in many different ways — for food, clothing, entertainment in circuses and zoos, medical experiments, biotechnology (e.g. using bacteria to synthesise human hormones) and cosmetic testing; in sports such as greyhound racing and horse racing, and even as objects of ’field sports’ such as fishing, shooting, foxhunting and hare-coursing. Some would argue that all of these uses of animals are wrong and that they should never be used as a means to a human end. Others would take the opposite view that it is right and natural for us to use other species for our own benefit, and that this is indeed the key to our continuing evolutionary success. This debate and the other debates on animals weigh up the pros and cons of our treatment of animals in various contexts. A debate on animal experimentation could be on cosmetic testing only or on medical testing. The arguments here focus on medical testing.

Pros

[1] Vivisection involves the exploitation and torturing of innocent animals to benefit humans, and this is wrong on principle. Mice are bred to be susceptible to skin cancer, exposed to high levels of radiation and allowed to die. Rats are genetically engineered to grow full-size human ears on their backs, and baboons are deliberately infected with the HIV virus. No economic or medical gain can justify such cruel and cynical exploitation of our animal cousins. More advanced mammals — especially primates (monkeys and apes) — have complex nervous systems like ours and are similarly susceptible to pain and fear.

[2] The successes, necessity and efficiency of animal research have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, vivisection is wasteful, inefficient and often unsuccessful, as well as being cruel. In the USA alone, an estimated 50—60 million animals are killed annually in the name of scientific research, but with highly unreliable results. Half of the drugs given approval in the USA by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) between 1976 and 1985, all of which had been tested on animals, produced sideeffects in humans serious enough to cause them to be taken off the market or relabelled with warnings; the Thalidomide disaster in the late 1950s and early 1960s is another such case. This is because vivisection is flawed as a scientific method. One species (e.g. rats, rabbits or dogs) cannot serve as a reliable experimental model for another (humans); penicillin is fatal to guinea pigs, for example.

[3] There are more humane and more efficient alternatives to vivisection. For example, in the ’Entex test’, vegetable proteins extracted from the jack bean mimic the cornea’s reaction to foreign matter and so can be used in the place of live rabbits to test for the eye irritancy of products. Tissue and cell cultures can be grown in the laboratory from stem cells or single cells from humans or animals — these can be used for tests in the place of live animals. Computer simulations of diseases and drug treatments can also be used in the place of vivisection. These technologies are improving all the time.

[4] Scientists are put in danger when they are asked to work in laboratories where animal testing occurs. The Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility for firebombing labs and attacking researchers’

Cons

[1] On principle, it is right and natural that we humans study, use and exploit the natural environment for our own benefit. That is the way that our species has come to thrive and prosper and it is right that we should continue to do so through experimentation on and exploitation of both vegetable and animal resources. Animals are not people and do not have ’rights’, and anthropomorphic sentimentality should not get in the way of scientific and medical progress.

[2] Experimentation on animals saves lives. Animal experimentation and research have historically produced innumerable medical and scientific breakthroughs that could not have been made in any other ways; experiments on cows were instrumental in developing the vaccine that eliminated smallpox worldwide; experiments on dogs in the 1920s led to the discovery of insulin for the treatment of diabetics; genetic experimentation on mice and primates is currently helping to develop gene therapy for cystic fibrosis. Animals from mice to primates to humans share the same essential biology and physiology (with analogous organs, nervous systems, immune systems and hormones).

[3] There are no alternatives to animals for research into complex immunological, neurological and genetic diseases. Computer simulations are only applicable to simple conditions of which we have full understanding. In more complex cases, our lack of understanding of the diseases (e.g. AIDS, cancer, muscular dystrophy) means we must experiment either on animals or on humans. People cannot be expected to volunteer as guinea pigs for untested drugs at all stages of their development.

[4] Scientists and laboratories can and should be protected, but we should not compromise the development of lifesaving drugs because of the threats and intimidation of terrorist groups.

homes and cars in 2006. It is not acceptable to ask civilians to expose themselves to this risk and make themselves a target.

Possible motions

This House would ban all animal testing.

This House would put science ahead of animal welfare.

This House believes that no cosmetic products should be tested on animals.

Related topics

Animal rights

Blood sports, abolition of

Vegetarianism

Zoos, abolition of