Legislating against cruelty

Abstract

The laudable aim of The Humane Research Trust trust is to promote humane medical and scientific research. Although many persons are totally opposed to the use of animals in what they describe as vivisection, a term of considerable ambiguity, most people recognise that some experimental use of animals is both necessary and justified in the pursuit of useful biological knowledge interpreted in a broad sense to include not only medical knowledge of benefit to man but knowledge which is acquired for the benefit and preservation of endangered species and the treatment of animals generally. Kindly disposed people are naturally concerned with the degree of pain and stress that might be engendered in such pursuits, however well intentioned, and on this topic I shall be elaborating later. In this paper I should like to accomplish three things: to review briefly events leading up to the present attitude towards animals especially in the field of scientific research, to discuss current legislative control in Britain of such research, and thirdly to indicate what improvements might be made in any future legislation.