the practice of performing operations on live animals for the purpose of experimentation or scientific research |  |
Animal research is carried out for a number of reasons: To ensure the safety of products for humans, such as pesticides, cancer treatments, and drugs (cosmetics’ testing is no longer in the UK but does happen in some other countries), or to discover the effectiveness of genetic engineering and surgical procedures. However there is a great deal on debate about the need for such experiments today given how effective and accurate techniques such as computer modelling are. There have been some very high profile protests in the news such as that which has taken place at Huntingdon Life Sciences and some highly criticised tactics by protesters. But why do some argue that we have the right to use animals in this way, and why do some argue that we have no such right?
On the one hand the traditional Judeo-Christian attitude that we can use Animals for testing comes from the Genesis narrative which points out that animals were not ‘companions’ for Adam: only another human, Eve, was. Humans are distinctive because they alone are made in God’s ‘image’ and likeness – spiritual creatures who are creative, moral, thoughtful and responsible, we have free will, conscience and the reasoning ability to build a different society. And in Genesis 1 humans are told to “subdue” the earth suggesting a dominance over the world. We have alone have been ‘Breathed into’ by God – Some call this a ‘soul’, an eternal part of a person which is their true identity and which will survive death; animals do not have this and therefore do not have the same value as us. Finally, God became man at the Incarnation – God became Man in .Christ to save us and not animals.
However many Christians would also argue that we are Stewards of God’s creation:This means we are managers on God’s behalf of His world. In Genesis Adam was put into Eden to “work it and take care of it”, that is, to develop it and to make sure it is well looked after. When The Lord’s Prayer says ‘Thy Kingdom come’ it is seeking God’s will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven – that is the job of the steward, to implement the boss’s purposes. Furthermore the Bible shows that God made his covenant with animals as well as human beings in the story of Noah; Human and non-human animals have the same origin in God; The Garden of Eden myth, in which human beings live in peace and harmony with animals, demonstrates God's ideal world, and the state of affairs that human beings should work towards; Animals are weak compared to us - Christ tells us to be kind to them because Jesus told human beings to be kind to the weak and helpless; and finally, in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus refers to the way God cares for the birds and the flowers as examples of ‘how much more’ He cares for us.
Which of these views do you find the more convincing?
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