TITLE: IS IT ETHICAL TO ALLOW ANIMAL TESTING TO BE PART OF RESEARCH PROCEDURE?

This essay will be examining the ethics on the using of animals for humans’ research in the scientific field.
Nowadays it is common for scientists to employ the usage of animals for experimental purposes, notably for the knowledge and exposure in science. However how much one may argue, I do not see how it is ethical to use animals’ lives for the sake of science, thereby I proclaimed that I do not agree to the using of animals for research purposes in substitution for human beings based on my view on the ethics. In this essay I will elaborate on the ethics by employing the five approaches covered in the lectures.

VIRTUE

Scientists are curious to know the mechanism of a particular disease, such that they employ the use of animals to imitate the disease that occur in a human being. The using of animals in research development can be regarded as a logical approach to prevent the use of human subjects as much as possible, while gathering data of an acceptable accuracy. It could be then seen as feeling empathy for human subjects to be used as experimental subjects in the research. Substitution of human subjects with animals can be therefore deemed as a response towards empathy.
However it is extremely cruel at the same time to juggle the lives of animals just because scientists felt remorseful and empathy for human subjects. Animals’ lives are still considered lives too. By substituting animals for humans does not eliminate the cruelty during the course of experiments (as opposed to be using human subjects in the course of experiments). One of the ethics guide published by BBC online stated that most of the experiments induced pain or hindered the quality of life of the animals involved. [1] However one may argue that animals were used in place of humans due to empathy, but the fact that the experiments do not eliminate the possibilities of inducing pain and decrepifying their quality of life still persists.

UTILITARIAN

The using of animals for research practices will enable the scientific society to gain insights and knowledge based on the experiment data. It is inevitable for research to be carried out on animals as they are an imitation on diseases that occur in humans.
However, the data collected may not be relevant enough to be used to draw conclusions for some experiments. Carey (2002) pointed out that no matter the result of the experiment, whether or not a particular drug shows no adverse reaction in animals, it must be carefully monitored during administration in humans. [2] (William DH Carey, BMJ 2002; 324: 236a) Also, Goodall (1999) expressed that animal testing often produced data that are not deemed beneficial to humans which contributed to more suffering and death of humans by applying the inaccurate data. [3] Animal testing may then not be necessary for experiments that derived data that are not useful for humans.
Although animal testing is still the fundamental procedures in scientific approaches, alternatives that do not involve in vivo procedure have been achieved. Most of these alternatives produced data with higher relevancy and accuracy to humans and generally does not induce pain and reduce quality of life of the subjects. [4] Animal testing may eventually be abolished due to its relatively lower accuracy and relevancy to human.

RIGHTS

Scientists have rights to establish their research method, omitting the consideration on legislation. Their role is to find out more on about science and what accompanies them is the right to explore science. By employing the animals to be in the research, scientists are just ‘exploiting’ them as a form of resources available. [5]
However, the animals have also the rights to live and the rights to reject to be in the experiments, whether or not it causes pain or damage. They have the rights to reject unnecessary pain involved as they are considered lives too. Andre & Velasquez (N/A) stated that the ability of an organism to reason does not affect its right to live and that whether a child, an adult or an animal receives pain of a similar cause, it would then be of equal moral values. [6]
Some may argue that moral capabilities belong to human beings as they are of efficient reasoning. Since animals are not able to reason efficiently, they are thus outside the circle of moral capabilities. They thus do not have rights to be included under moral considerations and that animal testing would not be immoral then. [7]

FAIRNESS

Scientists employ the use of animal testing before they move on to humans for safety purposes. In this context, it is fair for them to gather data from animals of lower classes before they advance to humans who are regarded as higher species. If it is fair to carry out experiment on animals, then discrimination of species would then inevitably arise. “Speciesism” would then be no difference than sexism and racism, and it would not be fair to allow animals to be undergo testing just because they are animals, [8] just like one would approve the testing to be done on females or males just because of their gender. The personnel carrying out the experiment would not wish themselves to be the subjects, just as so the animals.
In a way, the ethics of consuming animals as food had been questioned by many people. [10] In this context, animals are not the ones responsible for the diseases and the curiosity of humans’ in space. They are not obliged and it is not fair for them to be designated to be subjects of space missions or dissection just because they are of a lower class than humans. If there would be a higher class of organism than human beings, then the question of using humans as subjects for their research would then be another issue for consideration.
COMMON GOOD

For the technology to advance, animals subjects are needed to sacrifice allow the humans to gain knowledge. It would benefit the common good of the humans in an ethical manner if all the experiments are done in the safest approaches to minimize death and damage, implementation of replacement, refinement, reduction, [9] and the use of alternatives [11] as much as possible.

Number of words: 1,053
Done by: Wong Yao Jie
of Tutorial group 02








References:

[1][2] Animal ethics - Experimenting on animals. (N/A). BBC. Retrieved 17 May 2010, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/using/experiments_1.shtml
[3] Goodall, J., Berman, P. (1999). Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey. USA, Hachette Book Group.
[4][11]Research Without Animals. (N/A). PCRM. Retrieved 21 May 2010, from http://www.pcrm.org/resch/anexp/without_animals.html
[5][8][9][10]Ethics and Alternatives for Animal Use in Research and Teaching. (N/A). Research Animal Resources. Retrieved 21 May 2010, from http://www.ahc.umn.edu/rar/ethics.html
[6][7]Andre, C., Velasquez, M. (N/A). Of Cures and Creatures Great and Small. Santa Clara University. Retrieved 21 May 2010, from http://ww.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v1n3/cures.html