- Social and philosophical forces which have shaped our attitudes today towards animals
- A brief history of the ways in which we use and relate to animals
- A brief history of the development of the animal protection movement
- How we approach ethical dilemmas
- Replacement of animals in research and teaching
Controversy about animal experimentation is not a new phenomenon. Street protests and riots against such use of animals were seen in England in the early 1900's. For many years before that there had been public debate about this issue; scientists who advocated this experimental approach were criticised and caricatured in literature.
The past 15 to 20 years have seen a significant escalation in the level and kind of public protest. Violence has been directed towards research facilities and scientists; a number of facilities in the UK and USA have been damaged by bombs and vandalism and the safety of scientists and their families has been threatened. Public protest have also been directed towards other uses of animals, such as hunting animals for furs and intensive farming of animals such as pigs and poultry. In Australia, although we have not seen these kinds of extreme activities, these issues have been the focus of on-going public debate.
Such protests are symptomatic of a much wider social dialogue. Today, as evident by the level of media commentary, the nature of our relationship with other animals is part of main stream social commentary; animal welfare issues are part of the political landscape. We see the boundaries and nature of this relationship explored in art, literature and films.
Are these societal issues relevant to your decision to use animals as part of a scientific study?
Scientific Dilemmas
Scientists do not work in isolation from the wider community; their activities have both implications for and responsibilities to the wider community.
The use of animals is only one of a number of areas where there is public debate about how science is conducted and how new technology is used. For example, in the Life Sciences there are challenging questions about research involving human subjects, genetic engineering and xenotransplantation. What each of these issues has in common is that they involve activities where an individual has power over the rights or interests of another being -they raise difficult and complex ethical questions.
Scientists must engage with the wider community in debating and deciding such questions. Although scientific data will inform this debate, scientists, as much as any participant, will bring to these discussions their own values and beliefs. As has been noted by a number of commentators, resolution of these matters involves an examination of the heart as well as the head.
This problem explores the social influences that shape our attitudes towards other animals and impact on our decisions to use them for scientific purposes.
To learn more about these issues click on each of the toggles below.
Animals play a significant role in our social and psychological lives.
We interact with animals in a diverse range of situations - we use them for food, clothing, transport, sport and recreation, we compete with them for land and resources; we protect them in wildlife sanctuaries or we can be their prey. These animals can be our companions, our food, our competitors, our predators or valued icons. We interact with them in their natural environment and in man-made settings.
These relationships are of long standing, and the frequent use of animal images in literature, art, mythology, religion, folklore and language in all cultures is evidence of the power and universality of this relationship.
Humans have interacted with animals from the earliest times. The oldest images are of man hunting animals for food. Even in these days, animals were kept as pets and were buried with their owners.
Today, we still see examples of this hunter-gatherer culture in indigenous peoples of Australia and other countries. In the mythology of these cultures, animals are seen as being the spirits of man.
Past
Our interest in how the body functions dates back to early Greek civilization. Galen was one of the first to dissect animals to observe internal organs. Modern scientific thought emerged during the Renaissance and there was a developing interest in the function, rather than just the structure of the body. This broader perspective led to important breakthroughs, including Harvey's demonstration, in animals, of the circulation of the blood, which forms the basis of all cardiovascular physiology and medicine.
Present
With the significant technological advances in the 20th Century, experiments now allow us to examine the complexity of biological systems in much greater detail than ever before. There has been an explosion of scientific knowledge - both basic and applied, leading to a public expectation of good health and safe products and procedures.
Although with the significant technological advances has come an increased use of animals to achieve these major advances, technology has also provided the means of replacing animal use in many important areas, such as in certain aspects of testing vaccines. Many experiments can now be conducted using animals in ways that have less impact on their welfare. For example Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a non-invasive technique that enables real time images of organ function.
Future
Our continuing need to solve basic health problems means that use of animals for medical research will continue for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, the use of technology such as genetic engineering, also presents new ethical dilemmas.
You can find out more about the current public debate about the use of genetically modified animals in the following reports:
- Genetic engineering: animal welfare and ethics (1999)
- The use of genetically modified animals (2001)
- Animal Procedures Committee: Report on biotechnology (2001)
Animals are sufficiently like humans in one morally relevant respect, their capacity for suffering in basic forms, as to generate a moral claim on human beings.
Office of Technology, US Congress, 1984
Today we acknowledge that our relationship with animals is not simply one of utility, or dominance, or stewardship, but that there is a moral dimension founded on an animal’s ability to experience pain or suffering.
A decision to use animals for science (including research, teaching and product testing), poses a difficult moral dilemma. On one hand, we have the moral claim for the good which can be derived from such use, on the other, there is the moral claim of the potential harm to animals if they experience pain or suffering. Can we resolve these competing moral claims?
Ethics gives us a way of dealing with these difficult dilemmas by providing us with a framework to judge and set standards of behaviour by what is agreed to be right or wrong, good or bad. Ethical dilemmas are not new for science or scientists, especially in areas of biomedical and biological research, for example, the use of IVF technology and human fetal research or the use of gene technology and cloning. Many of the situations which give rise to ethical concerns in the life sciences, including animal experimentation, have a common basis, the potential harm or risk to the subject who may not be able to provide informed consent and who may not directly benefit from being involved in the proposed study.
Ethics, by its very nature, is controversial. Ethics sets out a framework to examine and test claims of value. However, ethics cannot help us resolve a dispute if it is simply a clash of interests or tastes. For ethics to be able to help, the opposing views must be reasonable and be able to be supported by logical argument.
Four principles have been proposed as tools to help identify and examine key ethical concerns in biomedical research. These principles are useful as a shorthand way of checking that relevant moral concerns are taken into account.
In essence, the goals set for us to judge our actions by these four principles are -
1. to do good; to actively look after another - beneficence: Does a proposal have the potential to do good?
As a general principle, the Code states unequivocally that:
Scientific and teaching activities using animals may be performed only when they are essential to
- obtain and establish significant information relevant to the understanding of humans or animals;
- the maintenance and improvement of human or animal health and welfare;
- the improvement of animal management or production; or
- the achievement of educational objectives. (1.1)
Thus any proposal must be able to clearly demonstrate how it will meet one or more of these goals. That is, it has the potential to ‘do good’.
2. not to harm another - non-maleficence: Has the least possible harm to the smallest number of animals been ensured?
The Code requires that:
- studies use only the minimum number of animals necessary to obtain scientifically valid data and that this should not occur at the expense of greater suffering to an individual animal (Reduction)
- studies must be designed to avoid pain or distress to animals and, if that is not possible, pain or distress must be minimised: alleviation of pain or distress must take precedence over finishing a study (Refinement)
3. to respect the individual, to respect their wishes - respect for persons: Do animals need to be used? (Replacement)
Even if the proposed project has demonstrable benefit, the need to use animals to achieve its goals needs to be carefully considered.
Some or all of the objectives may be able to be achieved using ‘alternative’ methods.
4. to seek the fair distribution of benefits and burdens within society - justice: Is there fair distribution of benefit and burden? on balance, is the proposal justified
Other questions which arise here include:
- Are the means appropriate to the ends?
- Are the means likely to realise the ends?
Ultimately, the decision to use animals in a particular study will be a value judgement. We must be mindful that values are influenced by cultural, social and political attitudes. Attitudes change and our decisions may not be consistent.
All aspects of the argument need to be carefully balanced and then a decision can be made whether or not the demonstrated benefits outweigh the potential risks to the wellbeing of the animals.