HebOrna Rinat
Britches, a baby Macaque monkey, was born in a lab in California. He was taken from his mother, and his eyelids were sewn shut. This cruel procedure was part of an experiment on blindness.
In 1985, animal rights activists broke into the lab and filmed Britches. In their footage, the monkey could be seen alone in a shabby little shed, huge and crude stitches on his eyes, a sonar cap on his head, and his hips connected by a leash to some sort of laboratory facility similar to a punching bag. His tiny fingers stroked the bag, feeling around, and he tried to suckle from it. Then he put his cheek to the bag, and thus – standing on his little feet, with his arms around the bag, he remained, perhaps falling asleep.
Britches was released from the lab by the group that broke in and shot the footage. The stitches were removed, his eyes opened, and he was transferred to a monkey sanctuary, where he was adopted by a female monkey of his species.
Britches' story has a happy ending – but over 100,000 Macaques continue to undergo similar experiments in Western laboratories, at the end of which they are killed. Every year, hundreds of millions of animals are killed in experimental laboratories: rodents, dogs, cats, pigs, and monkeys. The experiments performed include surgery without anesthesia, infection with terrible diseases, deprivation of food and drink (e.g. in psychological experiments or in neurological experiments), slow exposure to toxins, electrification, burns, impairment and maiming, and more.
The major fields in 
which animal experiments are performed are theoretical scientific research, medicine, and psychology, pharmacological research (where the effect of new medicines is analyzed) or consumer products such as cleaning and cosmetic supplies. In Israel alone, over 300,000 animals are killed every year in experimental laboratories. In the US the number of animals undergoing experiments is approximately 100,000,000 annually, of these about 20% in toxicity studies.
As far back as the 18th century, the method of experimenting on animals invoked ethical criticism (e.g. by the renowned philosopher Voltaire), and as the use of these methods expanded, along with the awareness of the suffering of animals – the criticism increased. Today, there is a vast general consensus according to which man has no moral right to cruelly torture animals for uses that are not critical to the quality of life, i.e. cosmetics and cleaning supplies, and indeed, in the EU, in Israel, and other Western countries, laws have been passed prohibiting animal experiments in the field of cosmetics, with certain exceptions.
Creating Psychological Death
The primary moral dilemma in the issue of animal experiments centers, therefore, on the field of science and medicine. First, it should be noted that even those who claim that experiments are critical to the advancement of science, cannot deny the fact that financial and other interests are responsible for an incredible scope of experiments which cannot be scientifically justified. All attempts to impose any supervision of these tests have been sabotaged by the experimenters. Thus, for instance, in Israel, the State Ombudsman's report exposed very harsh findings on the treatment of animals at universities and at the Weizmann Institute, and a lack of any supervision of the entity supposed to oversee them – the Council for Animal Testing – which contains a majority of members in favor of testing.
The public has a tendency to attribute reliability to people of science, but it's important to remember that the universities and their representatives did not balk at making claims in court (in their suit against El Al for its refusal to carry monkeys on flights for experiments) that were proven false by the Ombudsman's study – claims regarding their treatment of animals and the supervision of the tests. Neglect, abuse, and extreme violence were discovered even in the world's largest laboratories.
An infinite amount of experiments, a number which cannot reasonably be claimed to be critical for the advancement of science, have been performed by the most respectable of scientists, at the most prestigious universities, and published in the finest journals. One of the most well-known examples is the experiments performed by scientist Harry Harlow in the 1970's at Wisconsin's Madison University. In one of his famous experiments, baby monkeys were put in isolation in the "pit of despair" – a small metal cage shaped like an upside-down pyramid, containing only food and water. After thirty days of such imprisonment, the isolated monkeys were found severely deranged. After one year of isolation, they barely moved. Two refused to eat, starving themselves to death. In another experiment meant to invoke depression in monkeys, they were given a step-mother in the form of a monkey doll, that turned into a monster. The mothers would explode when the monkeys embraced them, but the infants continued to hang on to the remains of the artificial mother. In yet another experiment, scientists tied isolated female monkeys to devices called "rape platforms", caused male monkeys to rape them, and then studied the monkeys' parental tendencies: would the mothers abuse or neglect their offspring? One mother ate the fingers of her baby, and another crushed its face.
These horrific methods and others spread out into other primate research centers in the USA.
Are there experiments that are irreplaceable?
In spite of all this, most scientists do not enjoy torturing animals, and many do believe that some experiments are irreplaceable. We should also note that there are prominent scientists who criticize the method of animal testing on a scientific basis, claiming that alternatives should be developed – some of which are already in use. No one outside the field of science has the tools to settle this dispute. But if we assume that a widespread consensus can be achieved on which experiments are not critical and can therefore be stopped – what should be our position on those experiments proven – if proven – to be critical? Unlike the food industry, here there are human lives at stake.
Do humans have the moral right to cause unbearable agony – in a methodical and calculated manner – to animals not of their own species, even if for important interests?
This question is related to the issue of the moral status of animals. Those supporting animal testing emphasize the benefits these experiments bring to science, however that claim in itself is not enough to justify experiments morally, because if the sole parameter is scientific benefits, we could perform experiments on humans, and these experiments would undoubtedly be more beneficial. But in the case of humans, the moral obstacle applies – because no scientific or other benefit justifies experiments on human beings, according to the moral norms customary today.
Therefore, the claim in favor of animal testing relies not only upon the scientific benefit, but also on the deprivation of non-human animals of their moral status.
Deprivation of non-human animals of their moral status
In order to justify animal testing not only in terms of benefits but also in terms of morals – proponents of animal testing tend to deny the existence of complex and independent feelings in animals, and accuse those supporting a moral status for animals based on those feelings of "humanization". It is obvious to them that it will be much harder to justify the methodical abuse and killing of animals in possession of that most important feature granting us moral status – feelings. "People of science", wrote Goodall, "are permitted to perform procedures on animals that would be denounced as unacceptable atrocities in any other context… it is unsurprising that the scientists performing these experiments have found it convenient to believe that their subjects are devoid of any brains or emotions… but today it's becoming increasingly harder to deny that animals have brains and feelings. "
The study of animals' cognitive and emotional capabilities has undergone a revolution in the past few decades. It came to a peak 18 months ago, with the "Declaration on Consciousness" in which the most prominent scientists in the world announced that "the emotional and cognitive structures in mammals and birds have been found to be much more similar to those of humans than was previously thought… the conclusion is that humans are not unique in their possession of a neurological base that creates consciousness."
In spite of this, respected scientists continue to claim that the attribution of complex emotions to animals is "humanization". These scientists know, for instance, that animals' blood pressure, sugar levels, and pulse measurements all increase when in distress, but they refuse to address this phenomenon to the existence of a soul, meaning, a "being", that feels that "distress." This is what allows the Chairman of the inter-University forum to claim that the attribution of emotional distress, affection, or emotional dependency to Macaque monkeys – those sold and exported by the Mazor Farm for experiments – is "groundless humanization". This is in spite of a zoological report determining that the "separation of infants from their mothers (at the Mazor Farm) is a significant cause of distress and trauma among the separated infants, as well as among the mothers and the other monkeys present during the separation… the monkeys run around in distress, and cry out in screams and howls that can be heard far beyond the gates of the farm." Such views are also posited in complete denial of the article in Science from January 2013, stating that "Macaques, like humans, are capable of empathy, independent thought, self-identification in the mirror, a sense of justice, and the ability to understand what others think and feel."
It sometimes seems that science is developing on two parallel planes. On the one hand, scientists discover that animals can die of heartbreak, suffer from depression, understand abstract categorization, conceptualize death, but on the other, it seems that the field of animal testing is the last frontier of science where there still lies a belief in the separation of body and soul.
The Scientific Denial
The irony is that psychological and neurological researchers base their work on the assumption that animals can suffer mental anguish. The cruelty of their experiments lies precisely in that space between the recognition – crucial for their research – of animal suffering, and their moral denial of it. It is located in the cold sterile scientific jargon used to describe this agony in the most meticulous detail in the absence of any emotional reference to this agony; in the grand sophistication of science compared to its complete oblivion to the fate little blinded monkey fumbling for a warm body to embrace, or the agonized dog attacking its electrification device.
So at the same time respected scientists claim that animals are not subjects and therefore are not worthy of a moral status, and that "we don't know how they feel, because they have no language", they meticulously documented the difference between the "clipped howl" a dog sounds before landing on the floor of his electrified cage and the "continuous howl" after landing, and while they claimed that "We do not know what a soul or consciousness are", they published experiments on depression in mice. "We studied the effect of isolation from birth on… the monkeys suffered maternal deprivation… we recently dealt in studies of total isolation as from a few hours old… we discovered that isolation led to severe psychological behavior characterized by depression" (from experiments performed on monkeys by Harlow and his colleagues).
Here is the chilling dimension of animal testing – which makes them completely immoral, regardless of their potential "benefit". This dimension lies primarily in the decision of testing proponents to completely disregard all qualities that should be familiar to humans, and then using those same qualities against the monkey himself. The monkey who bashes her body against the side of the cage repeatedly when her baby is taken away, does not do so for any physiological reason, but because of something completely abstract – a feeling of loss and yearning. Her behavior, lacking any purpose or goal, is the behavior of grief. The need it articulates, the request to receive what was taken away, has no recipient. The monkey screams into empty space. Expressing her mental anguish is the goal. Only a developed mental inner world can create such behavior.
The person who took the baby does not recognize this distress, does not acknowledge the existence of this evolved consciousness as a basis for considering t
he monkey's interests. On the contrary. The experiment methodology makes cold and calculated use of the monkey's mental skills, his ability to remember the suffering caused in the past in order to avoid it in the future – an ability that proves self-awareness (which, in humans, is considered the base of moral acknowledgment of independence) – in order to punish him again and again, until he understands that the only way to avoid pain is to surrender completely to an interest for which he will continue to suffer, until his death.
What could be more relevant to moral acknowledgement than the existence of a soul, one that can be caused to experience "psychological death", as Harlow's experiments openly tried to do? How can one cause psychological death when one can see the look on the face of the monkey in the picture, holding her little baby. It's a look that no longer searches or gazes, it is only full of a deep sadness, with no hope. She doesn't even look at the monkey she's still holding. Even if his sleep is disturbed, he sleeps, because he has her. But she has no one. And she cannot sleep, because for him she's the only protection against the hell to which they are sent by the only species who understands (or professes to understand) what morality is.
In the name of moral superiority
And in the name of this understanding – one humans attribute solely to themselves – or in the name of morality, the most atrocious things of all are done. In the name of this moral superiority, we take those who are incapable of understanding our morals and turn their lives into nightmares. In the name of this understanding, we create a life which is an ongoing doom. In the photo taken at the Weizmann Institute's brain experiment lab, we can see a very young little female monkey, sitting in a tiny cage, with a large metal block on her neck, separating her head from her body. Above the block, her huge eyes stare out of the tiny, smiling, face. She looks like a baby. For years she will undergo training to prepare her for the brain experiments to which she is destined. She will have to learn to pull a lever when a square appears on a monitor. If she succeeds, a straw will spray a few drops of juice into her mouth. If she fails, it shall remain dry. That's her only source of liquids, until she learns. Two years later, the experimenters will cut through her scalp and apply dental glue to the exposed skull. At the end of three years, they will attach silicone reinforced with metal rings to her cortex. The monkey will be bound to a chair for eight consecutive hours every day. The silicone will be cleaned from her brain without any anesthesia. In the photos we can see the little monkey with her bruised red skull and her mouth open in a scream.
We have stolen that little monkey's smile forever. We have turned the phrase "maternal deprivation" into a neutral and scientific concept. Even if most scientists are not cruel by nature, what they are doing is unsurpassed cruelty. We can see and hear it well in any documentation of lab experiments: the chilling sounds of cage doors closing on the tiny, struggling little bodies. Mothers holding babies who cling with all their might, wrapping their tiny hands around their bodies, their eyes full of fear and incomprehension. The despair and conciliation in the mothers' eyes. A lifetime of ongoing terror until death – of fear of any noise. The howls of excruciating pain. The crude, compassionless hands, coming to take them to the next round of torture. The desperate attempt to grab the cage with their hands. The older monkey in the cage, his arm wrapped in a giant cast, his face covered in sores, as he smacks his lips like an old man, sucking and staring. The terrified screams of mothers and infants as they are put in wood crates. The monkey babies clinging to each other like little children, trying to find salvation in others, or staring blankly into space, their eyes dull.
That's science. That is how it is conducted in our day. And that's why the great humanist, Nobel prize laureate George Bernard Shaw wrote of animal testing: "the only knowledge we lose by forbidding cruelty is knowledge at first hand of cruelty itself, which is precisely the knowledge humane people wish to be spared… You do not settle whether an experiment is justified or not by merely showing that it is of some use. The distinction is not between useful and useless experiments, but between barbarous and civilized behavior. Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character."
