The dark side of human rights for primates – 10/10/2024 – Science

The Spanish government has announced plans to ban harmful experiments on great apes. The decision comes within the framework of a broader initiative to grant them rights closer to those enjoyed by humans.

These plans are innovative compared to most other countries in the world, but this measure has two aspects. Granting human rights because of similarity to us creates a new standard: other animals can only be freed from pain and suffering if researchers can prove that they resemble humans.

Great apes are a subgroup of non-human primates that include orangutans, gorillas, bonobos, and chimpanzees. More than 16 years ago, Spain first tried to give them personality. The cross-party resolution was discussed but not turned into law.

Currently, there is unnecessary experimentation on great apes It has been blocked In 29 countries, including the United Kingdom and New Zealand. This includes vivisection (surgery of a living body) or He torturesDepending on your stance on the moral rights of great apes.

It may seem like progress. The problem is that the word “essential” is defined in different ways. It generally focuses on crisis situations such as epidemics and epidemics, and on brain-related research (particularly Alzheimer’s disease and brain trauma), where many scientists argue that their similarity to the brain makes them the only equivalent model. In 1999, New Zealand He proposed granting human rights to great apesBut it stopped doing so, and banned all invasive experiments.

The Balearic Islands followed suit in 2008, and Austria is the only country in the world to ban all surgical procedures on non-human primates, large and small (also known as gibbons, which includes marmosets and baboons).

the Great Ape Projectfounded by moral philosophers Peter Singer and Paola Cavalieri, fights to put an end to experiments on great apes. On its home page, there are reminders of chimpanzees still imprisoned in laboratories, many of which have spent their entire lives subject to experimental procedures, such as the 26th chimpanzee from Alamogordo, New Mexico. These 26 chimpanzees are still trapped in the laboratory despite not being used in medical research for more than two decades.

The question of human rights for great apes raises a number of questions, particularly about the way humans understand the natural world in a hierarchical structure. Humans are at the top of this structure and control the other levels of the hierarchy. This is known as species discrimination. Who decides what is moral for other species? We are a species and our awareness legislates the fate of all non-human animals.

Many animal rights activists point to the 18th-century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s quote: “The question is not: Can they think? Can they speak? Rather: Can they suffer?” But this is not the main paradox when it comes to modern animal experiments. Rather, it is the belief that the more similar a non-human animal is to humans, the more useful it is for research affecting humans. It also means that your pain and suffering are more similar.

Great apes are good enough to serve as models of human physiology, but they do not seem good enough to be considered conscious, suffering beings. This also applies to less human-looking animals. For example, laboratory patent strains Mice with DNA Which reflects human cancers. This also makes them more vulnerable to it To suffer As if they were human. So, do we accept that mice are so similar that they can serve as models for us in experiments, but not so similar that their pain matters?

The second issue is that great apes reflect On their faces They act sympathetically, but this does not always apply to smaller apes. In February 2024, the charity Animal Aid published the results of a request for information about experiments conducted at the University of Cambridge on small monkeys. In 2022, 68 experiments were conducted at the institution that involved primates, for example, drilling into the skulls of monkeys and injecting a substance into their brains.

The UK is also home to a large beagle breeding centre, In CambridgeshireDogs can be force-fed toxic chemicals to study the effects. Beagles are often used in animal experiments due to their calm nature.

The lesser ape is not the human-faced great ape, yet many of its actions and responses are human-like. For example, Female gibbon dance To attract a partner.

The idea of ​​raising a beagle, a potential family pet, for experiments highlights the speciesism inherent in how we decide what or who we are angry with.

Because, make no mistake, every animal is a “who,” not a “what.”

It may seem outrageous to make this claim. You may wonder how a mouse can be a “who”. Mice are considered one of the most common species used in clinical experiments and are bred with diseases and genetic deformities specifically for this purpose. Isn’t the screaming of a mouse or the screaming of a monkey a special form of expression? Some rodent experiments are designed to “recapitulate the pain state in humans.” The problem comes from the human perception of the natural world and different species as existing only in relation to ourselves.

Animal rights activists often say that if slaughterhouses had glass walls, the world would be vegetarian. How would we feel if anatomy laboratories had glass walls?

Some scientists believe that animal experiments are harmful to humans because… Unreliable results. With the alternatives available, from Stem cell modeling To use AI in experiments and tests, as well as charities and research centers focusing on non-animal studies, perhaps the onus should fall on ourselves.

We must ask ourselves: If humans are so efficient and technologically advanced, why have our scientific methods become so outdated? Unreliable And unethical?

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