Insentient
Would it be okay to perform experiments on animals if they couldn’t feel pain? Could we keep animals in factory farms if they didn’t experience suffering? How does the language we use influence the direction of animal rights?
A 2020 research paper used “non-invasive three-dimensional imaging” to observe the growth of an induced tumor in a mouse. The use of ‘non-invasive’ methods allows researchers to satisfy some conditions of the 3Rs, where they claim they are refining their experiments to “alleviate or minimise potential pain and distress” to animals. This approach also allows researchers and facilities to apply for funding for their project.
However, in this project, ‘non-invasive’ only applies to the description of the initial 3D-imaging technique and not the research project itself. The mouse was still the subject of an induced tumor, and after imaging had been completed, the mouse was still “euthanized and the leg skin was removed”.
Animal advocacy groups will often criticise ‘invasive’ research methods, and they will certainly still have many things to criticise in the project cited above. But when it comes to the core of the argument, does it really matter if the research projects are ‘invasive’? Or, does it only matter that they use animals?
Genetic disenhancement is a genetic modification in which an animal has their ability to feel pain or suffering reduced or eliminated. It has been proposed as a replacement method and refinement method in both factory farming and animal experimentation practices. Where advocacy groups criticise the pain and suffering of an animal in a laboratory or on a farm, facilities and producers are focusing on alleviating the pain and suffering of an animal, not on the unethical use of an animal itself. In a criticism of genetic disenhancement in relation to the 3Rs, the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare says, “the problem with the 3Rs principles lies with their excessively narrow, sentientist concept of harm”.
Using animals in biomedical research has become commonplace, despite the significant and obvious species differences. However, advocates often include and promote a criticism of the failure rate of animal research. If researchers were able to genetically enhance an animal to the point where they were so similar to a human that all research on animals was able to be translated to human benefit, would it be acceptable to use animals? The focus on the failure rate of animal research only encourages researchers to improve the failure rate, not remove the animals.
The reason industries using animals are focusing on painful practices, suffering conditions, invasive research, and failure rates is that the focus has been placed on these aspects of an animals experience, and not on the animal themselves. Invasive procedures, failure rates, and pain and suffering are irrelevant. The context of an animals life must be at the centre of animal advocates messaging.
