On the treatment of animals, esteemed neurologist Lord Brain (1865-1966) remarked, “I personally can see no reason for conceding mind to my fellow men and denying it to animals...I at least cannot doubt that the interests and activities of animals are correlated with awareness and feeling in the same way as my own, and which may be, for aught I know, just as vivid.”
One of our basic intuitions is that animals, like us, are sentient beings. Physiology, neurology and evolutionary history tell us so, and few biologists dispute this fact. The similarities between the nervous systems of human and non-human animals support the claim that animals suffer.
The capacity to feel pain increases an animal’s chances of survival. And we can observe this capacity at work: like humans, animals exhibit external signs of pain. Experimentation on animals induces not only pain, but also stress arising from being placed in an unnatural environment. It is clear that finding a circumstance in which animal experimentation is justified would be an incredibly difficult task.
Some people believe that the capacity for reason is a criterion that should exempt a creature from torture, or from being used as a means to an end, from which perspective the use of animals for scientific research, consumption, and other modes of exploitation seems tenable. But a person whose ability to reason is impaired (perhaps by a brain-damaging car accident) clearly merits all the respect we would give to a person whose rational capacity is more developed.
Likewise, we have no right to exploit animals on the basis of their incapacity for rational thought. Their status as sentient beings is the essential characteristic that should compel humans as rational beings to extend equal consideration to animals.
Not only are animals our equals in suffering; they also show signs of empathy, compassion and attachment that further demonstrate their affinity to humans and invalidate any attempts to justify their exploitation. Studies conducted on rhesus monkeys have revealed their empathetic abilities by constructing situations in which one monkey’s consumption of food causes another monkey to receive an electric shock. Given the option of satisfying their hunger and consequently inflicting pain, or refraining from such satisfaction, monkeys starve themselves.
Many animals live for long periods of time in communities made up of their extended family, communities sustained by complex relationships. In the event of the death of a loved one, many animals undergo a grieving process comparable to that which humans experience.
Any dog owner knows the reality of her pet’s capacities for empathy, compassion and loyalty. Who would dispute the fact that the abuse of one’s pet—kicking or beating a dog, not to mention more egregious acts of aggression—is heinous (and illegal) behavior?
In light of this almost unanimous belief that pet dogs have rights, it is shocking that dogs are legal subjects in animal tests. Why do so many humans extend respect only to animals whom they love? The ethical laws by which we treat our pets should clearly apply to our treatment of other animals, given that all, of course, feel pain.
Of the several animal classes, the categories of mammals and birds contain the species most closely related to humans. And yet the Animal Welfare Act, the only federally enforced law regulating the human exploitation of animals, excludes mice, rats, birds and all agricultural animals from its protection.
People who experiment on animals routinely commit acts of cruelty, inflicting discomfort and agony upon innocent creatures.
Under the Animal Welfare Act, humans are allowed to starve, electrically shock and burn animals. Though on many occasions such experiments have enabled discoveries that have revolutionized medicine, it has been shown that most instances of animal experimentation yield results that are not applicable to human beings due to the differences in the physiology of animals and humans. The reason Penicillin was introduced into medicine is that Alexander Fleming happened to test the drug’s effectiveness on rabbits instead of the more commonly used guinea pigs, for whom Fleming later discovered the drug simply did not work. Doctor Richard Klausner, the director of the National Cancer Institute, identified the irrelevance of experimentation on mice—an incredibly common practice—to human suffering, stating that “The history of cancer research has been a history of curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades, and it simply didn’t work in humans.”
It is worth noting that the United States is far behind other developed countries in seeking alternatives to animal experimentation and in rigorously assessing the ethical nature of animal experiments: in Britain, the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, requires that in assessing the justifiability of a proposal to experiment on animals, “the Secretary of State shall weigh the likely adverse effects on the animals concerned against the benefit likely to accrue.”
Alternatives to animal experimentation exist. We need to avail ourselves of them, exhaust all alternative models, before we resort to animal testing. Even then, experimentation on animals is justifiable only when the number of lives sacrificed will certainly be significantly lower than the number of lives saved—when the benefit will clearly outweigh the cost.
I have demonstrated that it is necessary to consider animals as our equals on the basis of their ability to feel pain. When we conduct experiments on humans, we adhere to very strict rules to ensure that the human subjects experience as little pain as possible. We must exercise the same precautions when it comes to animal experimentation, always. Conducting such experiments for the sake of knowledge itself—not the alleviation of suffering—can never justify torture.
—Mollie Flannery ’11 is co-President of the Vassar Animal Rights Coalition (VARC). Opinions expressed in her guest column are not a representation of the Coalition as a whole.
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