Environment means a total combination of conditions surrounding humans. A human is a biological creature living and acting under the factors of the environment. The human’s environment includes factors of the inorganic nature (light, temperature, etc.), factors of organic nature (various actions affected by other live beings on the human), and social factors or so-called “social environment”: influence of the family, school, educational institution, place of work, friends etc. Religion and Roman Catholicism in particular propose a unique interpretation of animal testing and morality of this process. Under the impact of the social environment a human gains experience in different fields, makes efforts to develop and grow intellectually and culturally, attempts to show his best talents inherited from his parents. Thus environment particularly social is an integral being condition of a human. Following Roman Catholicism doctrines, animal testing is of vital importance for human beings, as despite the suggested alternatives it does not have adequate substitutes, nor does its renunciation provide a healthy perspective for humankind.
In the course of medical development, experiments on live matter have become an integral part of medical research. Striving to discover and explain the peculiarities of body functioning, already ancient Greeks and Romans resorted to vivisecting pigs; the scientific revolution of the Enlightenment era witnessed animal testing becoming the leading trend and a conventional method of medical practice (Hayhurst 43). Nowadays application of animals for testing a variety of products ranging from household compounds and cosmetics to pharmaceutical products is seen as an inevitable part of humankind striving for a healthier existence. However, for the past half a century the topic of animal rights has become a moot point that is debated throughout all layers of society, as certain ethical considerations lead to questioning the rightfulness of conducting tests on animals. But with all the respect to animal rights movement, animal testing still appears to be of vital importance for human beings, as despite the suggested alternatives it does not have adequate substitutes, nor does its renunciation provide a healthy perspective for humankind. Considering the issue from the viewpoint of animal rights activists, one faces the idea of animals as beings with their own beliefs, desires and self-consciousness. Thus, imposing human will on them in the form of violent experiments is viewed as an infringement on animal rights. Moreover, in the majority of cases the standard research methods cause pain, suffering and discomfort to animals and as it has been scientifically proved that animals do feel pain, such practices are classified as cruel and not supported for humanistic reasons. Laboratory animals’ freedom is limited by cages in which they spend their lives; to make matters worse, after the experiments, the animals who participated are doomed to destruction. All of the above-mentioned presents the animal research activities as a process of animal confinement, abuse and massacre by more powerful creatures, the humans (Hayhurst 76).
In terms of the Roman Catholicism point of view, if a person has a Christian orientation, he probably will speak in terms of the gradual realization of the Kingdom of God on earth. By this, he would mean that an increasing number of men will learn the foolishness and danger of selfish ways and come to obey the law of love in all their relationships. Ultimately, society will be ruled by God (“The Church and the Animals” 32). He would probably mention that there might be setbacks from time to time, as the Nazi brutality in World War II, but that in the long run the Kingdom of God will come, and for this reason we ought to do our part to hasten it by making the world a better place to hand on to future generations. On the other hand, this average person might answer in an entirely different manner by giving examples of how things are going from bad to worse. He might speak of the good old days when people could be trusted and personal initiative prevailed. He may point to world tension with the threat of atomic warfare, or to the increase of juvenile delinquency, or the growing restlessness of native peoples, or to the increasing dependence of people on their governments, using these as examples of growing decay and disintegration. Catechism of the Catholic Church clearly states:
“Animals are God’s creatures. He surrounds them with his providential care. By their ere existence they bless him and give him glory.[196] Thus men owe them kindness. e should recall the gentleness with which saints like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Philip Neri treated animals” (“Catechism of the Catholic Church” 2010).
If he has a Christian orientation, he might speak of the way that evil will gain strength until a titanic struggle develops between the forces of good and those of evil, a struggle with outcome uncertain until God intervenes to subdue evil forever and thus inaugurate His Kingdom. We began with religion as dealing with the meaning of life. When we consider what our experience means and how it is tied together, we necessarily involve ourselves in religion. But the total meaning of life must come from a source outside ourselves. We looked at the mainline of biblical thought that saw this meaning revealed in history, in human events rather than in some so-called spiritual realm divorced from our daily living (Walsh 43). The interpretation raised important questions whose answers were given in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. Here is where the meaning of history is revealed. One of the most persistent problems we face is the relativity of human existence. Our knowledge is partial, and what we think is good at the moment turns out to be evil in the long run (Lister n.d.). Things we think are ultimate turn out to be merely temporal. Within history, moreover, we have no final criteria by which we can make permanent judgments. To pretend that we have is idolatry. But neither can we relax into sheer relativity as though distinctions between good and evil do not matter at all. The Christian belief in the last judgment is the conviction that all our achievements are to be seen in an eternal light where right and wrong are finally seen as they are. Vivid and even threatening pictures have been painted of the last judgment with its separation of the “sheep from the goats” for all eternity; but the Christian belief in the final judgment is essentially hopeful, for the judge is not a foreign figure but Christ himself, who first came to redeem the world. The Catechism states:
“God entrusted animals to the stewardship of those whom he created in his own image.[197] Hence it is legitimate to use animals for food and clothing. They may be domesticated to help man in his work and leisure. Medical and scientific experimentation on animals is a morally acceptable practice, if it remains within reasonable limits and contributes to caring for or saving human lives” (“Catechism of the Catholic Church” 2010).
However, addressing the medical part of the problem, one may recollect the remote mid-twentieth century, when the American population was terrorized and locked indoors by the disease raging across the country: polio was affecting thousands of children, turning them into life-long cripples and leaving their parents desperate (Watson 98). At that same time diseases such as diphtheria, whooping cough, tuberculosis, measles and mumps were far from harmless and often lead to fatal outcomes. Humankind used to be helpless in the face of ailments which, if called deadly nowadays, would bring a puzzled look to any of society members. The factors that have changed the situation so dramatically are the vaccines against all the aforementioned diseases and obtaining those vaccines would have remained an unattainable dream but for carrying out laboratory experiments using monkeys, rats and mice. Animal testing for medical purposes has led to stunning results and achievements, which briefly can be summed up as follows: antibiotics which treat bacterial infections; insulin, a treatment for people with diabetes, and methods to deliver insulin (such as a skin patch) so that diabetics do not have to inject themselves with a needle every day; open-heart surgery and organ transplant surgeries, as well as drugs to prevent people who receive a transplant from rejecting their new organ; medications to treat AIDS and cancer; drugs that slow memory loss in people with Alzheimer’s disease (a disorder of the brain); statin drugs, which help reduce the build-up of a fat-like substance called cholesterol in the blood and reduce the risk of heart attacks; new spinal cord treatments to help return movement to people who have been paralyzed from an injury; drugs, such as medications to reduce depression, to help people with mental illnesses lead more normal lives (Watson 30).
Still, it is important to note that: ‘It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly. It is likewise unworthy to spend money on them that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery. One can love animals; one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons” (“Catechism of the Catholic Church” 2010). As it appears, millions of people have benefited from all the drugs, vaccinations and medicaments which have been developed due to medical laboratory tests carried out on animals; without that hope would be lost to them and their lives would be doomed to misery and suffering. The beneficial effects of animal testing on the health of the whole of humankind cannot be overestimated: animal testing results have appeared as a lifeboat for patients in most diverse areas of medical science (Watson 92).
Predictably, despite all the success of animal-based research, a question may emerge of whether it is possible to substitute animal test material with any other. As experts state, the age of animal experiments may be short as methods such as computer modeling and tests on banks of living cells are becoming more and more popular equivalents for involvement of animals (Lister, 2009). On the other hand, quality medical research requires several stages of test conducting: initially tests are held in vitro using test tubes, and by means of computer modeling and analysis that allows uncovering the basic biological issues related to disease; further on, a potential treatment, cure or preventative strategy frequently must be tested on a complex living organism in order to see how it functions within a body, as no computer simulation may be enough to predict the possible behavior of a medicament in real-life environment; and only if tests with animal models turn out to be promising and safe enough, the medical material is brought on further to human clinical trials (Lister n.d.). For those opponents of animal testing who claim that it is a cruel process of animal exploitation for the benefit of humans only, facts exist proving that animal testing has turned out to be of unsurpassed significance also for their fellow animals. Devised from research on animals, heartworm medication has saved the lives of multiple dogs; research conferred on felines has allowed a better understanding of cat nutrition and brought about improvements to cats’ lives, letting them live longer and remain healthier.
Due to the achievements of animal research, animal health issues are addressed much more efficiently now, helping to eliminate hereditary diseases. (Still n.d.)
However dramatic the picture may be painted by animal rights protectors, laboratory animals’ situation cannot be classified as horrifying in any case. Following the three Rs of laboratory animal research replacing animals where possible by computer models; reducing the number of animals require for experiments by optimizing the test process; and refining the existing procedures and techniques of research in order to minimize animal suffering and pain, scientists ensure that animals used in research do not suffer more pain or distress than animals outside the lab; and in fact, laboratory animals often receive the best of care because of their value to researchers (Hayhurst 76, Still n.d.). Therefore, whatever drama animal rights activists may stage in relation to animal testing, using simple logic and statistics one easily recognizes the prevalence of unquestionable benefits of animal testing for humanity and for animals themselves.
In sum, the price of animal lives in laboratories is adequate compared to the price humankind could be paying if animal testing was never done. Some people have questioned the use of the substitutionary idea, because a wider reference to vicarious suffering-that Christ suffered on our behalf, even giving his life for us, not in the sense of substitution but rather in the sense of complete self-giving–is much more apparent in the New Testament. It has been largely as expansions of these ideas that the traditional doctrines of the atonement have been developed. Many times, however, in trying to religious concepts originally meant metaphorically, theologians cheapened the principal theme. For example, using the ransom imagery to explain how Christ brings men back to God, some insisted that a real transaction took place, and that a price had to be paid to the devil for men’s freedom. Only, in the resurrection, which the devil had not at all anticipated when he first struck the bargain of the soul of the Son of God for the souls of all humanity, Christ was lost to the powers of hell. Others insisted that the price was paid to God, because man, through his sin, had put himself in debt to God: God could never in any sense be in debt to the devil. Their work is more directly concerned with the quality and quantity of food supplies, and less apt to be suspect. No one, it seems, objects to growing bigger and better corn and wheat crops by cross-breeding — something that has gone on for centuries. There is no controversy over transplanting the genes from plants that possess ability to vegetables that do not so that they will not require enormous amounts of costly fertilizer, which is as polluting as it is expensive. Or, for that matter, over-creating an elm tree that is both beautiful and able to stay free of the deadly fungus infection Dutch elm disease. All of this, and more, might be achieved simply by inserting the right combination of DNA into a plant cell, thereby giving that cell a capability it did not have before. Even now, scientists are working to separate genes that prevent certain fruits from freezing in bad weather. While some fruits manage to survive a severe winter, unfortunately, they do not taste very good.
Works Cited
Catechism of the Catholic Church. 2010. Web.
Hayhurst, C. Animal Testing: The Animal Rights Debate. New York, NY: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc, 2000.
Lister, S. “Animal Experiments Could End in a Generation”. The Times. 2009. Web.
Still, T. Animal Testing: Beyond the Protests, Instances of Mistreatment are Rare. Wisconsin Technology Network. 2006. Web.
The Church and the Animals. Catholic Authors Press, 2005.
Walsh, Michael. Roman Catholicism: The Basics. Routledge; 1 edition, 2005.
Watson, S. Animal Testing: Issues and Ethics. New York, NY: The Rosen Publishing, 2009