ISSUES OF NON-HUMAN LIFE & DEATH

KEY MORAL ISSUES

  • Whether or not humans have the fight to use animals for food, In scientific procedures, blood sports or as a source for organ transplants, without their consent
    • (given that they possess sentience, social organisation and cognitive skills)
  • whether or not animals have a right to life
  • Whether or not animals have a right to protection from unessecary and unavoidable suffering

ANIMALS FOR FOOD; INTENSIVE FARMING

-The food industry is geared towards mass production to meet high demans

  • animals for the use in the food industry are often kept in crowded and flithy conditions or in tiny cages
  • They are subject, often with no anaesthetic, to painful procedures such as de-beaking and branding
  • The meat industry contributes to the global problem of hunger some cattle require far more grain then they can produce meat

ANIMALS FOR SCIENTIFIC PROCEDURES; CLONING

  • There are mass breeding programmes in government-liscneced research institutions to produce sufficient animals for
    • testing the safety and efficiency of drugs and vaccines
    • research for certain diseases
  • Cloning of animals is also used for a range of things e.g preserving endangered species, making them disease resistant, improving mils & meat yields
  • With cloning, there are concerns about a slippey slope that will result in human-animal hybrids
  • there are also concerns about the risks and the suffering entailed in cloning

ANIMALS FOR BLOOD SPORTS

  • There are sports that involve the bloodshed for animals, and often death
  • Their sole intention is to provide source of entertainment for humans
  • the animals used undergo terrible physical and emotional suffering

ANIMALS AS A SOURCE OF ORGANS FOR TRANSPALNTS

  • Xenotransplantation is used in medical research e.g transplanting human tutor cells into mice
  • Trandsgenic pigs are being produced with the aim of transplanting their hearts into humandd, which will then address the shortage of human hearts for donation
  • There are concerns about the transmission of animal diseases into humans and their possible mutation into something even more deadly