The case for testing on animals
David Broder, a former animal rights activist, assesses the the issues behind scientific (and not so scientific) tests on animals
It’s no surprise that there are plenty of people who oppose Oxford University building animal testing labs. At a February 2005 High Court hearing, British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection activists claimed that at Cambridge, healthy and intelligent monkeys had the tops of their heads sawn off in order to induce strokes. After this ordeal, the monkeys were left without veterinary care for 15 hours, their brains exposed. Harrowing stuff.
But the Research Defence Society’s reply, upheld by the court, makes us think twice. The experiments were not, as animal-rights activists might have us believe, the work of “evil” scientists whose only aim is harming animals, but vital research aimed at solving the plight of countless stroke and Parkinson’s disease victims. Through examining the behaviour of advanced primates, they can better understand how to treat humans. In reality, the Cambridge monkeys were fully anaesthetised and properly fed and watered.
This case is symptomatic of the whole debate over vivisection. Animal-rights activists try to stop research on the basis of abuses (of which only some are genuine), while scientists committed to medical progress face the harassment of activists whose understanding and portrayal of vivisection are often naive.
The literature of groups such as Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) is always the same. Newsletters feature innocent fluffy bunnies and cats, next to articles about “Nazi” scientists and their “animal Auschwitz”. They crudely dismiss the notion that medical progress has been made. The tactics, however, rely on a rather more shrewd analysis — that animal testing labs need suppliers and financiers whose economic fate only partly rests on vivisection, and so are easier to pressurise than the researchers themselves. Until 2000, HSBC held stock in Huntingdon Life Sciences, but when staff were cold-called and threatened, the bank protected itself by pulling out. Groups such as SPEAK and SHAC claim that all of their tactics are legitimate, and only a fringe uses violence — in fact, their phone campaigns and attacks on specific companies only work because there are real threats to animal lab contractors.
At Oxford, it was not their peaceful protest that made Walter Lilly stop building the labs, but the fact that shareholders who received threatening letters were all too aware of past arson and bomb attacks on scientists’ homes by the “Animal Liberation Front”.
Last year, with the arson attack on Hertford College boathouse, such fears were corroborated. The ALF issued a statement last month; “...we must stand up, DO WHATEVER IT TAKES and blow these fucking monsters off the face of the planet. We must target professors, teachers, heads, students...”
Their movement sees abusing animals as the evil, and nothing is sacred in fighting it. If you think the lives of animals and humans are equal, such views have a certain lunatic coherence — their rhetoric is crazy, but their commitment is almost admirable. Many people in the animal-rights movement are caring people who empathise with lab animals’ suffering. And it’s easy to understand why footage of monkeys retching and skinned kittens angers them. Such images have a certain immediacy which nameless, hypothetical Parkinson’s sufferers lack.
But the reality is that countless human lives have been saved by treatment developed through vivisection. Insulin for diabetes patients, the honing of penicillin and the procedure for organ transplants relied heavily on trials which used animals.
Dr Joseph Murray, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on transplant rejection, said “there would not be a single person alive today as a result of an organ or bone marrow transplant without animal experimentation. All the work that we did depended on the use of animals.” There are other avenues of research, but the commitment of vivisectionists, despite death threats, to continue testing on animals displays the fact that scientists feel that it remains vital to medical progress.
Cosmetic testing is an entirely different issues. It is positive thing that cosmetic testing on animals has become increasingly rare, and will end in the EU in 2009.
Millions of animals still die each year for medical advances — their suffering deserves our pity. But we cannot over-sentimentalise this. Only 0.3% of the “victims” are primates, and 0.03% are cats. The fact that animal-rights activists are more shy of speaking out for rats and insects, which form the vast majority of animals used, shows that they are not confident in claiming that we shouldn’t sacrifice any creature to save human lives.
Marxists are humanists — the lives of humans are more worthy than those of even the most developed mammals. Humans are unique in their ability to create, to express ideas, to manipulate their environment. We have enormous potential, and can appreciate the world at a far higher level than other species. In evolutionary terms, humans, who have the potential to change the world, are light years ahead of orangutans or chimpanzees.
Animals are not a historically oppressed group which can liberate itself, or to which we can give solidarity. Their well-being depends entirely on human compassion. In this scenario, our ultimate loyalty is to people’s lives, and saving them by any reasonable means necessary is the priority.
This is not to say that we do not want to stand up to abuses, such as where Huntingdon lab workers laughed as they punched beagles in the face. Such acts are dehumanising and needlessly cruel. We condemn hurting animals for cheap thrills. We condemn them not because animals have rights, but because humans should not be so uncaring and violent.
Most relevant to issues about unnecessary animal suffering is the food industry, where the needs of capitalism require that chickens are kept in tiny cages and pumped with drugs so that supermarkets can save a few pence on produce.
In the case of medicine, some conclude that it would be better if we put money into alternatives to vivisection, so that we would not need to exact pain on animals to save human lives. Possibly so. But in the here and now I would far rather drugs companies were forced to put their profits into ensuring their products are safe for humans, than they paid for the survival of a few million worms.
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Dehumanising...?
I am not going to argue that medical testing on animals should be halted. I am an insulin-dependent diabetic, and - actually I'm hazy on the precise history of what's called 'human insulin', but it's likely it involved animal testing, without which I would be dead.
But there are aspects to the argument David puts here - which is pretty typical of a certain kind of marxist argument - which do not convince me. Three points.
1. "Animals are not a historically oppressed group which can liberate itself, or to which we can give solidarity." The claim seems to be that only those who are a) oppressed, and b) able to organise themselves have 'rights' properly understood. This would obviously disqualify babies, people in comas or with severe mental defects, and so on. I don't care especially about the word 'rights'; but entitlements in a broader sense are surely not dependent on being oppressed and being able to organise.
2. Animals' "well-being depends entirely on human compassion"; "We condemn hurting animals for cheap thrills. We condemn them not because animals have rights, but because humans should not be so uncaring and violent." The train of thought seems to be that unnecessary cruelty is wrong only because of the brutalisation is causes to the person being cruel. But this doesn't seem to me to make sense. If it is wrong, and brutalising, to be cruel, this is surely because of the suffering caused to the creature which suffers. Again, if you don't like the phrase 'animal rights', I don't care. But there must be some entitlement of the animal itself, in so far as it experiences pain, not to be caused such pain, for the stricture against 'hurting animals' to apply.
3. I think the distinctions David and others want to make between human beings and other animals are blurrier than they think. David says: "In evolutionary terms, humans, who have the potential to change the world, are light years ahead of orangutans or chimpanzees." Well I don't want to be pedantic, but humans and chimpanzees are a few million years apart, not light years: we have a common ancestor who lived maybe five or six million years ago (our common ancestor with orang utans lived a bit longer ago).
Consider this account of chimpanzee behaviour. (You can find it in several books, but the best account is by Frans de Waal, the primatologist who observed it, in his book "Our Inner Ape."). In a zoo in Holland, there was, among the chimps, an alpha male, Yeroen (ie he was dominant, had control over food and females, other chimps were afraid of him). One day Yeroen was deposed by a younger male, Luit. Luit's reign was brief, because Yeroen allied with another young male, Nikkie. Luit could handle either of them independently, but not both together. Nikkie became alpha male, but his dominance was highly dependent on Yeroen's support.
Then Nikkie and Yeroen fell out. Immediately, Luit reinstalled himself as alpha. Later, when the males and females were separated, Yeroen and Nikkie launched a joint attack on Luit (it seems Yeroen held him down while Nikkie very brutally assaulted him). As a result, Luit died. That morning, for the first time, the troop of chimps ate in silence. One of the females flew into a rage with Nikkie and chased him up a tree.
Some time later, when Yeroen moved his support to another male, deposing Nikkie, Nikkie was forced to flee, and drowned in the moat which surrounds the colony.
This is extremely intelligent behaviour. Chimps, and other apes, have been observed to have very sophisticated emotional responses. Some have mastered simple linguistic and mathematical tasks.
They are not, of course, human. But I don't think it's helpful to lump them in with cockroaches.
Human beings are, of course, only a species of animal, too. Moreover, although they no longer exist, there have been, in the five million years since our common ancestor with chimps, a large number of human species (including Homo habilis, Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalis, Homoe florensiensis. Maybe others). Maybe they didn't have the capacity to change the world - though many of them were pretty sophisticated tool makers, could make fire, etc. Of course they no longer exist; but as a thought experiment: would they have rights?
I am not a vegetarian. I am not arguing for an end to animal testing, the wearing of leather, or whatever. But there is something in the insistence that *in no sense* do *any* animals have rights - even what might be called partial rights, or rights which can under certain circumstances be superceded by human rights; that bugs me.
Agreed
I completely agree with Clive.
On his point 2, I would add that we would see a difference in people getting thrills from 'virtual' cruelty to animals - and humans - in video games, and dishing out actual cruelty to actual animals. This suggests to me that our objection is not just to "brutalisation" or "getting thrills", but to the suffering experienced by the animal.
Like Clive, I am not too hung up on the term "rights", but I am quite disturbed by the determination of many socialists to totally dismiss the concept of animals having rights. It sometimes comes across that we define socialist politics on this issue as "Socialists? We're the people who oppose animals having rights".
The "nicer" version of this argument is that we support "animal welfare" rather than "animal rights". Maybe that is a better term, but look around this website - how many articles on animal welfare can you find? Very few - it has come up as an issue in the context of defending vivisection and opposing animal rights activists. I agree that we should defend the use of animals in experimentation where it can benefit human health, but if we really support animal welfare, we should have more to say about it, and more to say against the many abuses of animals.
I'm also uncomfortable with David's description of humanism: "Marxists are humanists — the lives of humans are more worthy than those of even the most developed mammals." OK, so this probably isn't an attempt at a definition, but humanism is surely defined by concern for humans rather than by commitment to human superiority. There are many right-wingers who would agree with the statement that "the lives of humans are more worthy than those of even the most developed mammals", but who are very far from being humanists. It is better, and logical, to argue instead that "Marxists are humanists - and part of our humanism is to promote decent treatment of animals by humans".
Rights
Unlike Clive and Janine, I think that it's very important to analyse the question of animal testing through the prism of "rights" - unless you deny that such a concept exists or has any meaning, then it needs to be addressed. I don't think "entitlements" that are not "rights" really exist - what qualititative difference is there between the two?
I agree that people in comas, babies and people with mental health problems, although all unable to stand up for themselves per se, do have rights in as far as all other humans do. I do not think this means that 'being able to organise yourselves' is not a useful distinction between those who do and don't have rights. All that we need to resolve this apparent illogicality is understand that babies, the mentally ill or the comatose have human rights because they are humans, and humanity as a whole can demand rights. Even if as individuals they cannot fight, since other humans associate with them, seeing that despite their mental problems they are still fundamentally similar to ourselves, they therefore deserve the same respect. That is why even the most mentally deficient person is recognised to have rights, while the cleverest monkey hasn't.
For example, if a mentally ill person was paid below the minimum wage, but was her/himself too incapacitated to demand better, their union or colleagues would surely intervene to help them. Why? Because they understand that this person is a worker, and workers have organised and fought for rights. Therefore anyone who constitutes part of the workforce is entitled to such rights, and even if this person isn't able to take the employer to a tribunal on their own wits, we still recognise that because this is a worker, this person has the rights attributed to workers in general.
Humans of whatever mental capacity are seen to have the same rights as everyone else, because even the more mentally able can associate with these people as fellow human beings. The rights would not exist in the first place, however, if no-one had fought to win them - rights are a product of struggle, and groups which cannot organise themselves have no collective rights. Animals cannot do this. Similarly, I'm not sure if I believe that babies have any rights "as babies" - I think that really only "as humans" do they have any.
On the question of brutalisation, I agree that it is brutalising to be cruel to animals because animals suffer pain. The fact that they can suffer is important to the argument, yes - but I don't see how this proves that the animal has an "entitlement not to be caused pain". If my suggestion is that humans shouldn't be cruel to animals because it is brutalising to take pleasure from (or not care about)animals' suffering, then Clive's assertion that "if it is wrong and brutalising to be cruel, then it is surely because of the surely because of the suffering caused to the animal which suffers" does not in any way contradict my point. Neither does it prove any kind of "entitlement" on the animal's side.
Similarly in regard to Janine's point on 'virtual' cruelty to animals. The fact that we see this as different does not disprove my point about brutalisation. Surely it is less brutalising because the person inflicting cruelty in a game knows that they are not inflicting pain. We see a difference in the level of brutalisation between someone torturing a dog and someone killing an animal in a video game in just the same way that most people would never do the first because they wouldn't want to inflict pain on an animal, but most would see the latter as OK because they're not doing any harm. Yes, the fact that the animal suffers affects how we think about brutalisation of the perpetrator, but that does not mean that animal suffering is our only concern.
I agree that socialists should care more about animal welfare and write more about abuses of animals. Factory farms which keep chickens in tiny cages, or the raising of animals in slaughterhouses which pump them with steroids to make them grow, all show the brutal, uncaring capitalist system in all its glory. Undoubtedly a just, caring and socialist society would not want to put cutting costs above animal welfare. It is the profit system which drives people into not caring - it brutalises them.
Rights and entitlements
Just a brief thought on this, though it's a bit off-topic. Surely we use a concept of entitlement, as opposed to rights, all the time in normal life. For instance, my upstairs neighbours are sometimes very noisy, waking me up at 4.30 in the morning. I think I am entitled to a good night's sleep; but I'm not sure it's helpful to talk about this as a 'right'. People are entitled to be treated politely in all sorts of ways (not barged in front of when waiting for a bus; not shouted at for no reason; etc.)
Even in political questions, we use a hazier notion than 'rights' all the time. At a debate, do all points of view have a right to be heard? Obviously it's good democratic practice to allow as many people to speak as possible, but if someone doesn't get to speak, have their rights been violated?
My point is really that language is maybe not adequate to define all the gradations here. Clearly, what I have been arguing about some animals is a stronger sense of entitlement to not be treated cruelly than my right not to barged in front of at a bus stop. But I don't think it makes sense to insist on defining rights in one way, and then declare everything else to be a 'non-right'.
Rights and entitlements
The problem with all of this is of course that surely we do not claim that any animals have rights or responsibilities in relation to one another. We do not "condemn" a fox attacking a chicken, or a cat cruelly toying with a mouse, even if this is behaviour which we'd think unacceptable from humans - even though we recognise that the animals on the receiving end are "suffering" or, "oppressed" by the food chain...
The reason is that we see humans as having a responsibility not to be cruel, for it is unacceptable for humans to delight in causing pain. Capitalism is barbaric and undermines empathy for animal suffering in the name of profits - its replacement by socialism will lessen human cruelty to animals and so save workers in abattoirs etc. from the compulsion to mistreat them to save the bosses' money.
Animals' ability to feel pain is the reason why it is cruel and dehumanising to treat them badly - but does not give them any concrete 'entitlements' or 'rights', since we could never "demand" expect non-human predators not to break them. Only through the prism of humans being brutalised can we truly "condemn" cruelty to animals.
OK...
Yes. This is a good point. I agree. In this case we are only arguing about terminology. Maybe we are, in which case - who cares?
I'm inclined to feel, though, if you look back at the thread, that there were real points of disagreement, if only nuance. And I feel that some of the broader points I have tried to raise - about what distinguishes animals from each other, and about what constitutes 'human' - have been kind of glossed over.
But maybe there's not much point pursuing these arguments.
I'm afraid that I think your
I'm afraid that I think your second paragraph contradicts itself, David. By citing the case of cruelty in abattoirs, you are illustrating that human society can carry out cruelty to animals that is not motivated by individuals' sadism, but by other factors (profits, often).
So, is it OK to treat an animal with unnecessary cruelty if no-one is getting cheap thrills from it? No, it's not. So why is it wrong? Something to do with the animal being entitled in some way not to suffer pain unnecessarily.
Dehumanising
Even if profits are the cause of the cruelty, the acts of cruelty are still dehumanising - I don't think it's only "sadism" that we condemn.
My point is that the capitalist system/profits subvert and deny human compassion towards animals, since the workers in the abattoirs are prevented from a human display of empathy towards suffering creatures. It's not a question of cheap thrills - but we can condemn the capitalist system for its cruelty, i.e. another function of its drive for profits.
If animals had an entitlement not to suffer pain unnecessarily, we'd have to "condemn" foxes tearing up chickens they're not going to eat, and cats toying with mice. This demonstrates how you can't attribute human concepts of responsibilities, rights and entitlements onto animals.
foxes and cats
Foxes and cats have no concious control over their behaviour like we humans do. Its nonsense to say we must condem animals for their natural behaviour if we want to recognise they have the right not be made suffer unecessarily.
Well, no....
Well, no, it shows you can't expect animals to show compassion. Say it is an inalienable human right to live. If I am eaten by a tiger, it obviously makes no sense to criticise the tiger for failing to respect my right to live, but this has no bearing on the right itself.
I think you are confusing at least two things. Nobody in this discussion is insisting on the term 'rights' for animals, and I think most of us would be happy with 'welfare' or something. Most of what you say about why rights can only be claimed or respected by human beings is fine as far as it goes.
But some of us are arguing that the basis on which you might feel 'empathy towards suffering creatures' cannot be simply, which seems to be the argument, because it's good for people to feel such empathy... This seems like a tautological (or something) argument.
And obviously nobody is 'attributing human concepts' to animals. I don't think anyone is suggesting animals are capable of moral choices, etc.
But the sharp divide: people have rights, animals just *don't*, seems to beg more questions than it answers.
Cruelty
It is of course quite possible I'm being just dense about this. But I do not understand on what basis one can be concerned for animal welfare if it is not because the animals involved are in some way entitled not to be abused and subject to cruelty.
You can say animals have no rights, meaning we can do whatever we like to them. (And you can add that there are limits to do with the effects on people of being savage and cruel, which will have other effects in their treatment of other people).
But if you want to say that in some way - all other things being equal (eg it not being a question of medical research or some other important scientific question, or whatever) - animals should not be mistreated, you are saying something, surely, about animals, and not only about people.
Presumably we all agree that a tree cannot be tortured. I don't think a cockroach can, either. I think a cat can, probably - or at least I would be more concerned about the suffering of a cat than a cockroach. I am absolutely sure that a chimpanzee can be tortured. These are statements about the animals, not about people.
I am frankly - maybe it's my loss - very uninterested in whether what I am describing is or is not a discussion about 'rights'. I am more interested what all this means about our relationship with nature, with other animals, etc - about our 'place' in nature, perhaps.
Maybe this is another issue, and I am wrong to bring it up in this discussion: but, for example, we - meaning our species (currently organised along lines of global capitalism, etc) is on the verge of exterminating orang utans and bonobos. Is it sentimental to be upset about this? I don't think so. These are extraordinary, beautiful animals and we should be concerned about wiping them out.
Wiping out a species of insect might have consequences for an eco-system; but I am less bothered. Is *this* just sentimental? Again, I don't think so. I think the difference comes from an assessment of the differences between animals, and it is wrong to divide the animal kingdom into 'human beings', who can do what they like (in principle), and the rest.
Cruelty to animals, brutalisation of humans
Another point to challenge the idea that cruelty to animals is only bad because it is bad for humans to be brutal ...
There is a great deal of cruelty in the farming industry - factory farming, transportation, slaughter ... all can be unnecessarily cruel. But they are not done this way to provide thrills for depraved humans - rather, to save money and maximise profit.
But it's still cruel, and it is still bad. Why? Because the animals suffer unnecessarily, and that's bad regardless of whether or not a human is 'brutalised' in the process.
I am in agreement with Clive
I am in agreement with Clive on this issue, of course animals have 'rights' or 'entitlements'. They have the unqualified right to life. They are not here for our convenience and pleasure. I see it as extreme arogance to set ourselves up as godlike beings who can arbitrarily kill and torture other beings with impunity.
In our modern society there is no need to kill and torture animals at the rate we are doing. As David rightly says much of this cruelty is commited in the pursuit of profit. The perpetrators construct clever and elaborate arguments to justify their trade.
Recently on Radio 5 there was a debate about torture of terrorist suspects. The representatives of the military constructed a hypothisis which made the torture of a suspected terrorist justifiable. The hypothisis was absured as it would not happen in real life. However, the purpose was to establish that torture could possibly be acceptable. Once it has become acceptable hypothetically it becomes that bit easier to make it applicable to actual situations.
I see the arguments advanced by the factory farmers, butchers and vivisectionists as essentially similar to those advanced by the terror suspect torturers.
Remember when all make up was tested on animals. The testers argued that testing was essential to human safety, that there was no alternative if we wanted make up. Of course that was nonsense and soon all make up made in Europe will be cruelty free.
I believe the food and pharmacutical industries could do the same. Basically phase out cruelty because we don't need it and, increasing, we don't want it
Unqualified right to life?
Sean,
Unless you are one of the extreme Buddhists who take major steps to avoid killing a fly, you cannot believe that animals have an unqualified right to life. I don't know whether you are a vegan but you'd have to be to take that position. Should locusts that spread malaria have a right to life?
'An unqualified right to life' doesn't exist in nature - nature is 'red in tooth and claw' - species 'naturally' live by killing others. Of course, humans are different because they can make a conscious choice about how to regulate their relationships with other species (though they can never be sure of the ecological consequences). They can even decide animals have rights... which is precisely why they are different from other species.
Having said that, I do agree that cruelty should be kept to a minimum and that factory farming and other practices need to be far more stringently controlled.
Right to life
I'm not a vegan, my diet is vegetarian + fish. I am not a Buddhist (or a Jain which I think your confusing) I accept that my life will come into conflict/opposition with other lives. I'm not suggesting that all life can be gauranteed. All I'm saying is that animals have the right to life. Some animals must die so that others will live, this is life. However, we do not kill so that we may live we kill millions so that we can profit and I can't accept that this is justifiable.
If we can decide that animals have rights then surely we can decide that people have rights. Surely this is wrong. People have rights regardless of whether or not they are recognised by other people. The same holds true for animals. This viewpoint does not require me to cover my mouth with cloth in case I inadvertantly swallow a mosquito. It doesn't even require me to be vegetarian. Avoiding factory farmed/slaughtered meat is all thats needed for consistancy with this position. At the end of the day I have the right to life too.
I choose my diet because it minimises cruelty, is sustainable and I believe is consistant with my opinions.
BTW I think its mosquitoes not locusts that spread malaria.
Bruce ...
If humans *can* decide that animals have rights, then why on earth shouldn't we?