Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
animal breeding facility after she has left it, and since she is needed for feeding the
younger rats during the experiment, she has to be euthanized too. The killing of
healthy animals after experiments is sometimes masked through distinguishing between
animals “used” and animals “killed” as part of experiments. But since breeding facilit-
ies do not reuse animals that have exited the facility, a majority of animals that are
used will be killed even if they do not die from the experiment. I found no statistics
on or study of the scope of killing healthy animals in laboratories, and so I can only
guess how widespread such killing is. Rehabilitating animals that have been experi-
mented upon (sometimes called “the fourth R”) is rarely practiced with regard to
higher species (I have heard of projects involving rehabilitating or re-housing horses,
dogs, cats, and monkeys). No project I know of addresses healthy rodents, which are
the most commonly used subjects for experiments. To my mind, the practice of
killing these healthy animals exposes the moral superficiality of triple-R efforts. If we
were truly concerned about animals and genuinely believed that what we are doing is
a “necessary
evil
,” we would come out with better ideas than euthanizing scientific-
ally “useless,” healthy rodents.
“Compensating” animals sounds peculiar, and in today's climate is an oddity, but it
does merit reflection. Interspecies compensation is probably the wrong term, as the
experimented animal is not the animal that benefits. But there are three important
moral gains if research institutions provided funds for saving, say, three animals for
each animal that they kill. First, the overall outcome will be better for animals. Se-
cond, the act of compensation will encapsulate a financially backed recognition of the
immoral conduct being done (or minimally, some accountability for the fact that an-
imals are harmed so as to benefit humans). Third, such compensation enables a re-
search scientist, at the end of his work day, to know that with regard to animals as
such, his work has contributed to saving many of them, not just promoting their
death. This last gain—the linkage between scientists in particular and animal wel-
fare—is complex: on the one hand, society benefits from scientific work, and so it
cannot be fair to scientists to dissociate between “science” and society when speaking
of such “compensation.” On the other hand, tying research to compensation is sensit-
ive to the moral and psychological needs of the particular men and women who are
actually involved in the killing. “Compensation” can take the institutional form of re-
habilitation centers that begin by giving these animals a life, some life, after they
have been used (rather than packaging them off to zoos as food—a not uncommon
practice with survivors).
Such thoughts are obviously utopian. When animal exploitation for trivial human
gain is so widespread and nonapologetic, one can only be apologetic about impractic-
al remarks. The moral bottom line is clear: to be counted as a “morally justified im-
