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ANIMAL VIVISECTION See Also: Animal testing Modern codes of practice like those issued by the U.S. National Institute Of Health or the British Home Office require that any invasive procedure on laboratory animals must be performed under deep surgical Anaesthesia . These codes are legally binding for most organisations involved in vivisection in the western world (see, for example the U.K. Animals (scientific Procedures) Act (ASPA) ). Welfare laws and accepted codes of conduct specify that the procedures carried out on laboratory animals should not be painful to them, although legislation does allow for anaesthetic not to be used if it will confound the results of an experiment. Opponents to vivisection claim that the law can fail to protect animals being vivisected and point to undercover investigations showing that animals often do suffer. [http://www.vivisection-absurd.org.uk/xexpose.html Debate Since the 19th Century s controversy regarding vivisection has centered on two issues: the factual issue about how useful or necessary it is for science and human interests, and the ethical issue about whether it is right or wrong to use non-human animals for furthering human interests (or, occasionaly, for furthering the interests of other animals). One position is that the interests of human beings come first, and that it is fully justified to vivisect an animal if by doing so we may advance human interests, such as saving a life. Indeed, in some interpretations of Christian and Kantist doctrines, non-human interests are often seen as carrying no weight at all by themselves: :"If a man's affection be one of reason, it matters not how man behaves to animals, because God has subjected all things to man's power (...)." ( Thomas Aquinas , '' Summa Theologica '', first part of second part, question 102 ) :"so far as animals are concerned, we have no direct duties. Animals are not self-conscious and are there merely as means to an end. That end is man (...) Our duties towards animals are merely indirect duties towards humanity." ( Immanuel Kant , ''Lectures on ethics'', New York: Harper and Row, 1963, p.239) The ''antispeciesist'' position challenges that point of view, regarding it as a manifestation of Speciesism , a form of arbitrary discrimination similar to Racism or Sexism : :"I argue that there can be no reason - except the selfish desire to preserve the privileges of the exploiting group - for refusing to extend the basic principle of equality of consideration to members of other species." (Peter Singer, ''Animal Liberation'', Preface to the 1975 edition) Some who argue the antispeciesist position demand that any difference in treatment be justified on the basis of morally relevant characteristics of the individual, and deny that the mere species of the individual counts as such. Peter Singer , whose 1975 ''Animal Liberation'' popularized the term "speciesism" claims to be a Utilitarian , and consequently calls for equal ''weighing'' of the interests of all individuals; for instance, performing toxicology experiments on mice would be justifiable if and only if the expected benefits would equally justify inflicting the same level of pain on human beings. This would imply the abolition of the vast majority of current forms of vivisection, though not necessarily of ''all'' animal experimentation, depending on the comparative issue of how useful such experiments are. Other antispeciesists, following the Animal Rights approach, believe that that utilitarian analysis is weak; and that all animals, or at least those who are ''subjects of a life'', cannot be used as ends for means, whatever benefit we may expect to reap ( Tom Regan , ''The Case for Animal Rights''). HUMAN VIVISECTION See Also: Human experimentation Vivisection has long been practised on Human beings. Herophilos , the "father of anatomy" and founder of the first Medical School in Alexandria , was described by the church leader Tertullian as having vivisected at least 600 live prisoners. In recent times, the wartime programs of Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele and the Japan ese military ( Unit 731 and Dr. Fukujiro Ishiyama at Kyushu Imperial University Hospital ) conducted human vivisections on Concentration Camp prisoners in their respective countries during WWII . In response to these atrocities, the medical profession internationally adopted the Nuremberg Code as a code of ethics. This code of ethics does not prohibit vivisection on humans. Human volunteers can Consent to be subjects for invasive experiments which may involve, for example, the taking of tissue samples ( Biopsies ), or other procedures which require surgery on the volunteer. These procedures must be approved by Ethical Review , and carried out in an approved manner that minimizes pain and long term health risks to the subject {Link without Title} . Despite this, the term is generally recognized as pejorative: one would never refer to life-saving surgery, for example, as "vivisection." The use of the term vivisection when referring to procedures performed on humans almost always implies a lack of consent. REFERENCES Croce, Pietro. ''Vivisection or Science: An investigation into testing drugs and safeguarding health'', Zed Books, 1999. ISBN 185649733X SEE ALSO
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