Ethical Dilemmas In Animal Research Essay

When it comes to animal research I feel there are to major dilemmas that arise that play a major role in how we determine the research methods as ethical or not: (1) do certain non-human species have changed consciousness and (2) to what extent do the animals suffer or experience death and how that influences their overall “well-being.” I pose these to issues because as rational, logical creatures we are capable of answering these two questions for ourselves and discuss our thoughts and feelings with one another, but we are unable to converse with or tap into the psyche of other species in a similar manner. Essential, we cannot determine with certainty if non-human species truly have a consciousness or evaluate their overall state (aside from
The mice were injected with various melanoma cell lines and the tumor growth and progression was analyzed by sacrificing the mice at various stages and looking at various organs that may affected by metastasis. All in all the mice did not appear to suffer and the tumors had little to no noticeable affect on their living condition or quality of life, aside from the fact they had cancer and would be sacrificed. I mention this because I never felt that this situation was unethical, but my professor would tell me a story from his graduate years that he experimented with the flu virus on mice and that watching them get sick and “suffer” did not sit well with him and he never felt completely comfortable with doing the procedures. All in all I believe the use of certain species in research should be taken on a case by case basis. In current times it still remains impossible to determine the consciousness of other species and to fully understand their psyche but as with the three R’s I believe we can work to utilize animal models less and to maintain a sense of decency and respect when determining the type of experiments that we feel are necessary to utilize animal models