 that will investigate and develop alternatives to animal research. This is good news. But the entire UK funding for developing alternatives to animal research of �660,000 per year (recently doubled by the Office for Science and Technology) is minute compared to that invested in the UK animal research industry itself, which currently uses 1.9 million animals. (9.8 million animals are used across the EU).
The dilemma in a nutshell
We are left with the reality that much research continues that is genuinely troubling from an ethical perspective, and that raises really tough questions about ways in which humans discriminate between members of their own species and those of others.
None of this is to deny that much animal research is of profound benefit to humans and often to other animals too. Though not all of it. It's important for all sides in this debate to distinguish between genuinely useful research and that which is badly designed or unnecessary. Under this category might go research that is designed to test drugs which have already been developed by market competitors; research that repeats work that has already been done; and research that is designed to test products deemed unnecessary to human health and welfare.
But this leaves unresolved the toughest of tough ethical questions that has emerged above. Are humans entitled to perform research on non-human animals in cases where the research would not be permitted if it were to employ human subjects in the same way? To put it another way, where we wouldn't use ourselves, are we entitled to use other sentient animals as research equipment?
Humans at the centre of the world
However this is finally answered, it's clear that the animal rights debate raises a profound set of questions about our relationship with the non-human world. We may laugh now at the outrageously human-centred attitudes of the past, wonderfully highlighted by Keith Thomas in
Man and the Natural World.
'Every animal was thus intended to serve some human purpose, if not practical, then moral or aesthetic. Savage beasts were necessary instruments of God's wrath; they fostered human courage and provided useful training for war. Horse-flies, guessed the Virginian gentleman William Byrd in 1728, had been created so 'that men should exercise their wits and industry to guard themselves against them'. While the lobster served several purposes in one: it provided men with food, for they could eat its flesh; with exercise, for they had first to crack its legs and claws; and with an object of contemplation, for they could behold its wonderful suit of armour. As for cattle and sheep, Henry More in 1653 was convinced that they had only been given life in the first place so as to keep their meat fresh 'till we shall have need to eat them.''
In fact, our attitudes today are not so far removed from the walking fridge view of sheep. They are often still firmly rooted in the assumption that humans are easily the most important creature on Earth and that sentient animals are legitimately available to us as resources for agriculture, entertainment, research, companionship, and so on. Whether or not these assumptions are legitimate is the crux of the ethical debate.
Whichever way the issue is resolved, the uncomfortable truth is that meanwhile, some or all of the five freedoms are being violated by many of the ways in which we humans currently keep and use non-human animals. Taking the notion of animal rights seriously would be a powerful way of ensuring that human practices become more humane.
Find out more
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Animal Liberation Front
Animal rights discussion forum with news on the key issues and also some disturbing video footage and images.
Compassion in World Farming
Their key aim is to abolish factory farming and stop the suffering of farm animals. The website has lots of information, a publications list and ideas about how to get involved.
Foundation for Bio-Medical Research
US organisation that defends the use of laboratory animals. The site contains 