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“Would You Let Your Child Die Rather
than Experiment on Nonhuman Animals?” A Comparative Questions
Approach
Katherine Perlo
ABSTRACT
By placing the title question alongside five comparative
questions and offering answers to the whole set as given by
seven imaginary respondents, this paper analyzes the question’s
deceptiveness and the inconsistency of its implied claims. Apart
from ambiguities of situation, history, and agency, the
question’s demand for a choice between “your child” and
“nonhuman animals” obscures a field of other values regarding
(1) species, (2) family ties, and (3) the wrongness-in-itself
(or otherwise) of the experiments envisioned. This paper argues
that while a “No” answer to the title question does not, as
intended by the questioner, support the experimental status quo,
even a “Yes” answer does not reflect a choice between one’s own
child and animals.
A woman came up to an anti-vivisection stall I was on and said,
“My son has cystic fibrosis. Without animal experiments he would
have died. Should I just let him die?” We replied, as is
customary in public debate, that the choice was not as she had
outlined it, because animal experiments were unreliable, at best
superfluous, and even harmful, and that alternatives were
available. But it occurred to me that the hidden ethical
complexities underlying her question were even greater than the
empirical ones and that the title question of this paper, of
which hers was a personal variant, needed to be explored in
detail.
Examination of it also is of paramount importance politically.
Animal experiments are the last frontier of the animal rights
debate in that, assuming the experiments are necessary and
efficacious (an assumption accepted here for argument’s sake),
they present a more powerful appeal to human self-interest than
does any other form of animal usage. Nowadays, most people know
that meat-eating is unnecessary and unhealthy (even though they
may be habituated to it); they realize that circuses, fur,
hunting, and cosmetic experiments are unjustifiable luxuries.
The vivisection issue remains, and the title question is its
strongest weapon.
So I wish to show that this question not only challenges but
also misleads as to its true subject-matter, as can be
demonstrated by means of five comparative questions (such as
often occur in animal-rights discourse), containing different
variables for “your child” and/or for “experiment on animals.”
It is to be supposed that all six questions (including the title
one) are asked of seven imaginary respondents, six of whom
answer, “No” to the title question and one, “Yes.” The full
meaning of each respondent’s answers to the title question will
be derived by consulting her answers to the comparative
questions.
The exercise is not a mock sociological survey. Its purpose is
to expose the factors concealed within a question that purports
to contain only two alternatives. The reader who might (if an
abolitionist) feel stymied by the title question or (if a
research-defender or sympathizer) feel vindicated by it, would
realize that it is open to many challenges.
Nor does the procedure seek meta-ethical or normative
principles, which can decide the issue. For example, Slicer
(1991), on feminist grounds, calls for more attention to
specific context, as against the general criteria sought by
Singer (1975) and Regan (1983). (I must stress that Slicer is
more against than for animal experiments.) She also rejects the
rationalist stance of these two writers. But while I shall query
the first, contextual, argument and support the second, partly
subjectivist view, the comparative questions exercise (as
distinct from my commentary) measures, among other things, how
people might or might not apply any such perspectives
consistently with regard to animals versus human beings; child
versus human stranger; and experiments versus other morally
questionable acts.
Clearing Misunderstandings
Before addressing these complexities, some more general
misunderstandings that the title question encourages should be
cleared away.
Misleads as to the Actual Situation Envisioned
It suggests a “lifeboat” situation in which there is an animal
in the next room and your child’s life could be saved by
experimenting on the animal. Or, more realistically (the fantasy
version nevertheless having been placed in the respondent’s
mind), it evokes a parent withholding a life-saving
animal-tested drug from the child. The true situation is that
abolitionists are trying to prevent future tests being done on
animals, not to stop people using existing medicines, where the
harm to animals cannot be undone. If this position seems
inconsistent, consider your reaction to the discovery that a
certain medicine had been tested on prisoners-of-war or
handicapped children. Would you be willing to use the medicine
to save life; and if so, would you therefore support the
continuation of such experiments? Indeed, it has been asserted
that German and Japanese wartime human experiments have worked (LaFollette
& Shanks, 1996, p. 257), but this has not been advanced as an
argument for more of the same.
It is true that in seeking to ban any future animal experiments,
the anti-vivisectionist is accepting an eventual risk to her
child’s (or another’s) life. But this is not the same thing as
the certain harm necessitated by a lifeboat decision and by
current research practice. However, lifeboat decisions are also
vulnerable to the comparative-questions procedure.
Misleads as to the Historical Situation
In implying an inherent conflict of interest between the child
and the animal in the laboratory, the question obscures the fact
that the conflict of interest has been manufactured by the
long-entrenched habit of using animalsto the point where such
usage has become “the central element in the current biomedical
paradigm” (LaFollette & Shanks (1996, p. 32).
Manufactured conflicts of interest arise whenever a dominant
group has made some aspect of its well-being dependent on
oppression of another group and then, on being morally
challenged from within, demands, “Whose side are you on -- that
of your own kind, or that of Group B?” There is an inherent
conflict of interest between a human being and a hungry lion
unexpectedly encountered in the forest or between a human being
and a germ. In such situations, neither side would be blamed for
defending its vital interests. But there is only a manufactured
conflict of interest between a human being and an animal used
for research.
Misleads as to the Type of Agency Involved on Each Side
“Let your child die” is a loaded expression, because “to let
something happen” implies that you had the means to prevent it
and that those means were morally acceptable. If they were not,
they would never occur to you as a solution. You would not be
accused of “letting your child die” because you had refrained
from killing another child to obtain an organ transplant. So, in
using that expression, the title question assumes the values it
claims to be promoting. Animal experiments are defined as the
passive, default action; refraining from them, the aggressive
anomaly. It is true that omission, say through not giving a
medicine, can be as morally objectionable as commission -- but
only if the omitted act is acceptable in itself.
The Exercise
The implied claims of the title question are as follows:
1. The animal experiments debate is about loyalty to your child
versus loyalty to animals;
2. Only animal, and not human, experiments should be done; and
3. Animal experiments may be used to benefit all people.
Regarding (1): Do I mean it implies the debate is only about
that? Or primarily? Or at all? As with the actual situation
envisioned, the psychology of the respondent on this point is
uncertain. It will vary with the answers to the comparative
questions, and each case will be analyzed. But the effect of the
title question is to isolate the factors of “your child” and
“animals” in order to support the status quo, which embodies
claims (2) and (3).
If “your child” is read as a measure of loyalty to all humanity,
the interpretation would be refuted by any difference in the
answers concerning “your child” and “unknown human.” Regarding
claim (3), animal experiments are, of course, often used to
benefit animals as well as people; but there is not space to
include the factor of veterinary medicine, and its absence does
not affect the points being made.
Six Questions
The six questions, including the title one, are as follows:
1. Would you let your child die rather than experiment on
animals?
2. Would you let your child die rather than experiment on
non-volunteer humans?
3. Would you let an unknown human die rather than experiment on
animals?
4. Would you let an unknown human die rather than experiment on
non-volunteer humans?
5. Is there any act (Act X) that you would let your child die
rather than commit?
6. Is there any act (Act X) that you would let an unknown human
die rather than commit?
Analysing the Answers
Three factors are assessed in analyzing the sets of answers:
speciesism, family ties, and the wrongness-in-itself of the
experiment. By speciesism, I mean the belief that human beings
should have priority over animals in moral decision-making,
sometimes expressed as the claim that humans are “superior to”
or “more important than” animals. The first four questions test
speciesism and family ties. Questions 5 and 6, besides testing
whether there can be ethical limits on family ties, also test
the perceived wrongness-in-itself of any experiment, the
willingness or unwillingness to do, which is compared with the
willingness or unwillingness to do Act X.
The answers to questions 5 and 6 are significant only if someone
answers, “Yes” to 5 or 6 but, “No” to its counterpart as regards
family status or species of experimental subject or beneficiary:
For example, “Yes, I would let a stranger die rather than commit
Act X”, but, “No, I would not let a stranger die rather than
experiment on animals.” Here, experimenting on animals is seen
as less wrong-in-itself than Act X.
The answers, “Yes” and “Yes”, or “No” and “No” to question 5 or
6 and its respective counterpart occur in the exercise but are
insignificant as they do not tell you whether the experiment is
thought to be equally bad as Act X. And since it would be
contradictory to say, “No, there is no act that I would let
child/stranger die rather than commit” but “Yes, I would let
child/stranger die rather than do one or other type of
experiment” (“No” to 5 but “Yes” to 1 or 2; “No” to 6 but “Yes”
to 3 or 4), I have not used these combinations in constructing
the sets.
The factor of wrongness-in-itself could be challenged by
Slicer’s (1991) contextual rather than absolutist approach.
Using the “imperfect comparisons” of “euthanasia” and “just
war,” she comments: “But for many thoughtful people the question
of whether animals should be used in research is more
pertinently one of when they should be used and how they will be
treated” (p. 117). Addressing the personal context, Slicer calls
for consideration of “pre-existing emotional or other bonds we
might have to members of our own species, community, friends,
family, or lovers who may suffer as a result of Singer’s and
Regan’s recommendations” (p. 119).
However, you cannot answer when or how without also answering
whether. If you say, “When? -- only in such-and-such a
situation; How? -- in such-and-such a way,” you already have
answered, “Yes” to “whether.” You have assumed the right to do
the act, although choosing to consider certain limits on it. If,
on the other hand, you say, “When? -- never; How? -- no way,”
you have answered, “No” to “whether,” leaving the “When” and
“How” functionless.
Questions 5 and 6, then, ask the reader first to consider that
there might be some acts that are regarded as so very wrong, at
least prima facie, that people would reject them automatically
without being aware of taking an absolutist position; and
second, to compare people’s willingness, or unwillingness, to
commit such acts in certain extreme circumstances with the
willingness, or unwillingness to do the experiments indicated in
questions 1 to 4.
The Place of Empiricism in Answering the Questions
Although abolitionists rely heavily on arguments against the
efficacy of animal experiments, my imaginary respondents and the
reader are asked to assume such efficacy in order to exclude
empirical factors other than the ethically central question of
whether experimental animals suffer. This is because empirical
arguments undermine ethical choice. As G. B. Shaw observed, “If
we attempt to controvert a vivisectionist by showing that the
experiment he has performed has not led to any useful result,
you imply that if it had led to a useful result you would
consider his experiment justified” (Clark, 1977, p. 2).
Research scientists, themselves, sacrifice expediency to their
own humanist ethics -- inasmuch as human subjects would be
preferable for controlled research into human medicine -- but
animals, although second-best, are chosen for ethical reasons.
Repeatedly one encounters statements such as Sir Peter Medawar’s
in LaFollette, & Shanks (1996): “It is better that laboratory
animals should be used than that tests should be made directly
upon human beings” (p. 8).
An example of how empirical argument undermines ethics lies in
the question of how like or unlike us the experimental animal
is. Here, researcher and abolitionist alike fall into
inconsistency. The former says the animal is like enough for the
experiment to be reliable but unlike enough for it to be morally
acceptable. The latter says the animal is too unlike us for the
experiment to be reliable but like enough to render it morally
unacceptable. Either way, the empirical claim works against the
ethical one.
One might criticize on logical rather than empirical grounds the
claim of Sigma Xi, 1992 that medical progress could not have
been made, and never can be made, without the use of animals
“:...research with animals has made possible most of the
advances in medicine that we today take for granted. An end to
animal research would mean an end to our best hope for finding
treatments that still elude us” (LaFollette and Shanks, 1996, p.
4).
The statement implies provable negatives that may or may not be
true. As to the past, we can never know; as to the future, we
could know only by trying to manage without animal experiments
and finding that we could; if we could not, there always would
be the possibility of successful alternatives in the future. But
for argument’s sake, the contention will be allowed.
Accordingly, in order to focus on ethical choices, in this
exercise the questions and answers contain the assumption that
animal experiments are reliable and necessary. One empirical
question is, nevertheless, inseparable from the moral one: Do
animals suffer from experiments? Without suffering, debate about
the right to life would remain and will be discussed later. But
“if research on animals was never painful and did not involve
confining them, it is doubtful whether the public would be as
concerned” (Morton, 1989, p. 169).
Addressing the Question of Suffering
There are few who would nowadays maintain, with Descartes, that
animals cannot suffer, although reductive terminology may be
used to obscure the fact. But do experimental animals suffer?
Research scientists themselves, and the laws and agencies
regulating their activities, acknowledge suffering. According to
the U.S. Department of Agriculture, “institutions claim that
only 5-6 percent of their animals are in category E research”
(“causing pain and distress not relieved by drugs”); (LaFollette
& Shanks, 1996, p. 249). These figures “exclude research using
rats and mice. Yet 80-90 % of all animals used are rodents” (LaFollette
& Shanks, p. 250).
In Britain, where 2.62 million procedures were carried out in
2001 (Home Office 2002b, p. 2), under the 1986 Act, severity
limits for a given project are set as unclassified, mild,
moderate, and substantial. Although “[t]he Secretary of State
will not license any procedure likely to cause severe pain or
distress that cannot be alleviated” (Home Office, 2002c,
([Section 10 (2A] (para. 5.42),
[p]rovided the project licence holder can show sufficient
justification, the Secretary of State may temporarily authorise
a higher severity limit for a period of up to 14 days to allow
the balance of likely benefit and likely cost to be reviewed and
amendment to the project licence to be considered. (Home Office,
para. 5.44)
Suffering is acknowledged in the “cost” element of the
cost/benefit assessment, and in the category of “regulated
procedures” (those “which may cause pain, suffering, distress or
lasting harm to ‘protected animals’”-- substantially,
vertebrates plus the common octopus: Home Office, 2002d, p. 1),
which in 2001 could be carried out at 182 user establishments in
Britain (Home Office, 2002a, p. 86).
The questions and answers in this exercise therefore contain the
assumptions that (a) animal experiments work and (b) animals
suffer from them. The first assumption excludes empirical
debates, which distract from ethics; the second includes the
empirical factor, which is most relevant to ethics.
Other Conditions of the Questions and Answers
1. The actual situation envisioned by the respondent depends on
the individualperhaps a vague mixture of lifeboat situations,
plus awareness that in fact only future experiments are the
subject of debate. The reader might consider what situation
would be in his or her mind if asked the question.
2. Although “procedure” would more accurately cover all the
relevant research activities, the term “experiment” is kept to
conform to the title question.
3. “Research” means medical research on non-volunteer living
subjects.
4. Not all plausible variants of the title question have been
used. These very omissionssuch as animals as beneficiaries of
the experiment or of Act X; human marginal cases in any role;
oneself in any role; and one’s own child as research
subjectfurther reveal its hidden complexity.
5. When a question specifies human research subjects, they would
have the same conditions as laboratory animals: They would be
(a) imprisoned, innocent non-volunteers, either bred or captured
for research; (b) allowed such refinements as currently are
available for some animals, such as group housing (Hampson,
1989, p. 245); and (c) humanely destroyed after use.
6. Research subjects would all have been made ill or bred with
predispositions to illness rather than being genuine patients
having new procedures tried on them primarily for their own
good.
7. None of the experiments would be for cosmetics, household
products, or psychological research. The reason is that there is
already widespread disapproval of such tests, some of which are
banned, and my aim is to examine the vivisection case at its
strongest point, namely medicine.
8. The animals would be vertebrates, who “have well-developed
nervous systems and therefore are more likely to experience pain
and suffering...than are other types of organisms” (Stephens,
1989, p. 151).
9. Respondents are to ignore practical problems of the
experiments, such as the confinement of non-volunteer humans,
and to concentrate on ethics.
Analyzing the Sets of Answers
In considering these, you may want to consult the following
abbreviated summary of the questions and the seven sets of
answers, which have been chosen for psychological plausibility
(see Table 1). The answer to the title question is given in
bold, because that is the one whose meaning is being elucidated.
It may seem confusing to put the answers in terms of, “No, I
wouldn’t let A die rather than do B” instead of the
corresponding, “Yes, I would do B to save A”, but this is
necessary to match the title question, which presents an
accusation intended to provoke a defensive “No”. The question’s
implied claims also are repeated for consultation.
-------------
Question:
Would you Would
you Would you Would you Is there
Is there
let your
let your
let a
let a any act
any act
child die child
die stranger stranger (Act X)
(Act X)
rather than rather
than die rather die rather that
you that you
experiment
experiment than than would
let would let
on animals on
humans experiment experiment your
child a stranger
?
? on animals on
humans die rather die rather
? ? than
than
commit? commit?
Set:
1 N
N N
Y N Y
2 N
N N
Y Y Y
3 N
Y N
Y Y Y
4 N
N Y
Y N Y
5 N
N Y
Y Y Y
6 N
Y Y
Y Y Y
7 Y
Y Y
Y Y Y
Implied
claims of the title question:
----------------
Set 1 Answers: NNNYNY
Both family ties and speciesism are present. In being willing to
sacrifice both animals and humans and to commit Act X for her
child, whereas she would not sanction the latter two things for
the unknown human, the respondent allows no limits to family
ties. Speciesism is found in the distinction between allowing
the unknown human to benefit from animal research but not from
human research. But since the respondent would do anything to
save her child, the debate is only partly about “your child”
versus “animals”, and so claim (a) is only partly met. The
answers do not support exclusively animal research, so claim (b)
is not met; but animal research would be used to benefit all
people, so claim (c) is met.
Set 2 Answers: NNNYYY
Here, family ties and speciesism are present in equal measure,
because the person would experiment on humans (as well as
animals) for her own child but would not experiment on humans
for a stranger. However, her willingness to allow her child to
die rather than commit Act X establishes limits to family ties.
Claim (a) is not met because she would experiment on humans to
save her child; claim (b) is not met for the same reason; but
claim (c) is met since both the child and the stranger could be
saved by animal experiments. Despite the tendentiousness of the
expression, “allow to die,” I use it in order to echo the title
questionwhich shows how the terms in which a debate is
constructed can push one’s thinking in a certain direction.
Set 3 Answers: NYNYYY
The debate was not, on the face of it, about “your child” versus
“animals” at all, because both the “stranger” and “your child”
would benefit from animal experiments but would be allowed to
die rather than be saved by experiments on humans or by Act X;
so the family factor does not enter into it. Claim (a) is not
met.
Comparison of answers 5 and 6 with the others shows that the
respondent regards animal experiments as not
wrong-in-themselves. Human experiments are considered
wrong-in-themselves but not necessarily as wrong as Act X. The
fact that she rules out the latter shows that she recognizes
limits to family ties or other-human loyalty but does not
consider animal experiments to exceed those limits. So the main
value to emerge is speciesism. The answers do support
exclusively animal research to benefit all people, so claims (b)
and (c) are met.
Set 4 Answers: NNYYNY
The main value is family ties, combined with aversion to
experiments. The respondent would allow both human and animal
experiments to save her child but would let the unknown human
die rather than be saved by either type of experiment. Claim (a)
is not met. Answers 5 and 6 show that, as with either type of
experiment, she would commit Act X for her child but not for a
stranger; but we cannot tell from this whether she considers the
experiments as wrong as Act X.
The answers do not support exclusively animal experiments,
because both human and animal experiments would be allowed for
her own child; claim (b) is not met. Since animal (like human)
experiments would not benefit all people but only her own child,
claim (c) is not met.
Set 5 Answers: NNYYYY
Here the respondent would sacrifice both humans and animals for
her own child but neither group for the unknown human. Family
ties, however, like unknown-human-loyalty, are limited by the
unwillingness to commit act X. Where her own child is concerned,
Act X is considered more wrong than either type of experiment;
so, although experiments also are considered wrong in the
unknown-human case (as shown by answers 3 and 4), they are not
considered as wrong as Act X.
Since no species distinctions are drawn but only family
distinctions, claim (a) is not met. Since human as well as
animal experiments would be allowed for her own child but not
for all people, claims (b) and (c) are not met.
Set 6 Answers: NYYYYY
This respondent’s, “No” solely to the title question shows that
here the debate is indeed about “your child” versus “animals.”
Humans would not be sacrificed for her own child, and neither
animals nor humans would be sacrificed for an unknown human. The
strong moral sense shown by unwillingness to commit Act X even
for her child, or to experiment on humans for anyone, or to
experiment on animals for the unknown human gives added
significance to the one “No” answer. Speciesism is shown by the
fact that animal experiments would be countenanced in the case
where Act X or human experiments are not. (Because human
experiments, like Act X, would not be countenanced in any case,
we cannot tell whether they are considered equally as wrong as
Act X.) So claim (a) is met. Since the answers do support
exclusively animal experiments, claim (b) is also met; but as
those would benefit only the respondent’s own child, not all
people, claim (c) is not met.
Set 7 Answers: YYYYYY
The first “Yes” must be accompanied by five other “Yes” answers.
After explaining why, I will suggest the thinking behind the
initial “Yes”.
Only the “poodle-loving man-hater” remark applied to
Schopenhauer (Clark, 1977, p. 48) of speciesist demonology would
be willing to experiment on humans, but not on animals, to save
her child. So a “Yes” to question 1 requires a “Yes” to question
2. Only someone who particularly hated her own child would let
the child die rather than experiment on animals or humans but
also would not let a stranger die in both those cases. So “Yes”
to questions 1 and 2 requires “Yes” to questions 3 and 4 as
well. Regarding questions 5 and 6, as explained earlier, you
could not without contradiction say “Yes” to 1 or 2 and “No” to
5, or “Yes” to 3 or 4 and “No” to 6. So the “Yes” answers to
questions 1 to 4 require “Yes” answers to questions 5 and 6 as
well.
Values and Assumptions Indicated by a “Yes” to the Title
Question
All these responses derive from emotion in the sense of
preference or aversion. I support Slicer’s (1991) view that
“faith in the rational and universal force of principles at the
expense of our emotional responses is naive, based on ... a
Western and perhaps masculinist contempt for our emotions” (p.
115). Singer’s and Regan’s professions of rationalist faith (Slicer,
p. 115) conflict with the emotional force of their writing and
with their personal commitment. Honest emotional appeals on both
sides of the vivisection debate are the most relevant ones,
because if no one cared either about curing diseases or about
animal well-being there would be no debate in the first place.
What is needed is “recognition of the ‘fusion of feeling and
thought’ as characteristic of moral life” Slicer (1991, p. 115)
quoting Kheel, with thought-playing an instrumental role.
The respondent’s initial “Yes” would refer to the actual
situation underlying the controversy: namely, not a lifeboat
dilemma, but a campaign to end future experiments. She would
give the child animal-tested medicine if it were the only
treatment available, because there the damage to animals could
not be undone. But she would take the risk that an end to
vivisection might cause her child’s death in the future.
The aversion to the active harm done by experiments on
non-volunteers (human or animal) would reflect a belief that
research subjects are harmed more from the research being done
than prospective beneficiaries would be harmed by its not being
done. “Harm” would be considered in relation both to suffering
and to the right-to-life.
Suffering. The research beneficiary (the patient) is an object
of concern, and effort is made to keep the patient comfortable;
but the research subject, being a tool, is allowed only such
comfort as is consistent with research purposes, economic
practicality, and legal constraints. The patient may have a
family; the research subject is denied family and social life.
The research subject is sometimes caused suffering deliberately
(where intrinsic to the procedure) or knowingly (as an
unavoidable part of the procedure), in neither case for his own
eventual benefit; this is never done to a patient.
Animals’ cognitive limits, such as relative lack of anticipation
and memory, may lessen their suffering. But this would be
balanced by inability to understand, reflect on, or try to
relieve their situation. Although the human patient’s relatives
would suffer more than would the relatives of some experimental
animals, other animals show great distress when separated from
their young. In any case, this factor is outweighed by the
others mentioned.
Rights. In considering the extension of “rights” to animals, one
need not make unverifiable claims of “moral worth,” “inherent
value,” or the like. Rather, one might consult feelings of
aversion toward treatment of human beings that violates their
rights without causing any suffering (including mental
suffering, as in the case of a person too ill to know what was
happening), and ask whether such aversion would be inappropriate
in the case of animals, and if so, why. How would one react to
the creature in Adams (1980, pp. 92-93) who positively wants to
be eaten? The character in the restaurant, far from being
reassured by the creature’s lack of suffering, feels even more
revulsion against using a being who has had the will to live
removed.
On both “suffering” and “rights” grounds, the respondent who
answered “Yes” might have tested the matter by preference and
concluded that it was better to be an ill or bereaved human than
an animal in the laboratory or a human in the laboratory and
that this was why the experiments were unjustified.
Conclusion
Considering the many hidden questions of value that would enter
into a person’s response to the title question, apart from its
ambiguities of situation, history, and agency, there is no
combination of answers to the six questions that could securely
support all three implied claims. This is because the title
question (1) appeals to a personal attachment (which might be
deemed adequate grounds for doing something otherwise felt to be
wrong) in order to justify a policy that is universally applied;
while (2) also linking that attachment to a species bias that
would limit what could be done to honor the attachment.
Regarding (1), just because you would choose your kid’s life
over that of a neighbor’s kid in a situation of true emergency
does not mean that you would favor allowing certain kids to be
sacrificed for other kids as a matter of social policy (Animal
Rights Law Project, 1996, p. 2).
Regarding (2), where experiments on animals but not on humans
are condoned, the responses show the great extent to which the
force of the title question depends not on duty of care to
children but on an assumption of human moral superiority.
So I would say to the woman at the stall:
“Of course, use existing medicines for your son, as there the
harm to animals has already been done. But that would be the
case also with medicines tested on helpless human beings, and
while you might use those, you would not necessarily support
doing more such experiments, even to prolong your child’s life.
And you might not consider that you had “let your child die” by
refusing to support them.
“Consider how you would feel at the prospect of humans being
used for research by extraterrestrials who were convinced that
they were more important than we are. They too might feel
obliged to sacrifice humans to save their own offspring. Only if
you would consider them to have “let their offspring die”
through leaving human beings alone could you consistently feel
you had “let your child die” through leaving animals alone.
“To avoid actively causing certain suffering and death, I would
oppose both animal and non-voluntary human experiments, even if
they might some day save my child’s life. I don’t need to
campaign to end human experiments, since they are not being done
anyway. But I do need to campaign against animal experiments,
and that is why you think I care more for animals than for
humans. In fact, I only choose to avoid hurting any sentient
being. That would be my choice. What you choose is up to you.”
Note
* Katherine Perlo, Department of Philosophy, University of
Dundee
References
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Animal Rights Law. (1996). False choices: Your child or your
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Clark, S. (1977). The moral status of animals. Oxford: Clarendon
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Hampson, J. (1989). Legislation and the changing consensus. In
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Home Office (2002a). Statistics of scientific procedures on
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In G. Langley (Ed.), Animal experimentation: The consensus
changes (pp. 169-192). London: Macmillan.
Regan, T. (1983). The case for animal rights. Berkeley:
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Singer, P. (1975). Animal liberation: A new ethics for our
treatment of animals. New York: Avon.
Slicer, D. (1991). Your daughter or your dog? A feminist
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