The Conservative MP Oliver Letwin held a Parliamentary debate late last week on animal testing (available by scrolling a little way down this page). His intention was to ’highlight some of the philosophical issues that need to be debated‘ as we move forward over the coming years.
A major theme of his speech is that ’there are no obvious set of dividing lines‘, and that ’we are dealing with things that are continuums of one kind or another‘.
Mr Letwin highlights as potential dilemmas the distinctions between cosmetics and household cleaning items, and the distinctions between great apes and other types of non-human primate. In the latter case, he points out that the prohibition on the use of great apes means that the current construction of the law is not easy to defend on a coherent or rational basis. He confesses that ’for the life of me, I cannot see how one can rationally defend the proposition that there is such a great difference between great apes and the other primates as to make sense of a law - the current law - which prohibits experimentation on the one and allows it on the other‘.
Mr Letwin has called in particular for greater transparency, in order to be able to have a prolonged, careful and rational debate.
This is something that we would applaud.
