Reduce, Refine, Replace: The Failure of the Three R's and the Future of Animal Experimentation

Abstract

The debate in animal ethics is defined by those who advocate the regulation of animal use and those who advocate its abolition.'The animal welfare approach, which focuses on regulating animal use, maintains that humans have an obligation to treat animals "humanely" but may use them for human purposes. 2 The animal rights approach, which focuses on abolishing animal use, argues that animals have inherent moral value that is inconsistent with us treating them as property. 3 The animal welfare approach is the dominant model of animal advocacy in the United States. 4 Animal experimentation provides a fertile ground for testing this model because a unique confluence of factors make experimentation appear susceptible to meaningful regulation.First, there is more opposition to using animals in experiments than to any other type of animal use.