ABSTRACT
We noted in Chapter 7 that the quest for a theory of personhood has raised the vexed question of the moral status of animals. This is not an insignificant issue in medicine as animals play an indispensable role in medical research. Their role in the development of clinical advances is a topic which has generated major debate and resulted in direct action against researchers by animal rights protesters. There is therefore, even here, a call for health researchers to reflect upon the place of values in these procedures. This is the more so if we give weight to theories of morality in medicine which make personhood the defining factor of what calls for ethical responses from practitioners and which do not restrict the use of the description person to humans. Indeed, as we have seen, the criteria of personhood employed in such theories mean that some animals rate above some humans for ethical concern. Let us look more closely at such claims.
