OAR and science faculty to host ethics forum

Six renowned speakers debating one controversial topic will come to Oberlin Monday. Thanks to the combined efforts of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, the Oberlin Animal Rights (OAR) group, Philosophy and Neuroscience professors and several Neuroscience majors, a forum will be held next week.

The groups, long known for their dissenting opinions on the subject of vivisection of animals in the Neuroscience department, worked together to create a forum entitled "Animal Use in Science and Medicine: Ethics and Policy." The two-day forum is a culmination of years of protests and disagreements on the topic of experimentation on live animals.

Barbara Fuchsman, chair of the Committee, said that fliers announcing the event ask readers, "Is it ethical to use animals in medicine? Is it ethical not to use them?"

These are the questions experts from around the country will attempt to answer beginning on Monday.

University of California at San Diego Neuroscience Professor Andrew N. Rowan and Humane Society Senior Vice President for Research, Education and International Issues Stuart Zola will address the issue of "scientific considerations of animal use" Monday night.

University of North Carolina Philosophy and Religion Department Chair Tom Regan and Raymond G. Frey, professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University, will then debate the "moral considerations of animal use."

On Tuesday night eco-feminist Carol Adams, author of The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, and Jerrold Tannenbaum, a veterinary ethics expert and professor of Environmental and Population Health at Tufts University, will debate "The Politics of the Human-Animal Relationship" prior to an unrelated speech Adams will give students later that night.

"I think the forum is going to be really dynamite. It give us the chance to really have careful and thoughtful explorations of these issues in an academic atmosphere," Fuchsman said

She said the forum was made possible by the Mead-Swing Lectureship Fund.

Double-degree fifth-year Joel Krier, a Neuroscience major involved in planning the forum, is also looking forward to it. "This will be a great opportunity for well-informed debate to occur. I'm really excited about who we're bringing. These speakers will encourage debate and conversation between the two camps, and allow opportunities for audience members to ask questions, as well," he said.

OAR members are also enthusiastic. "The forum is definitely a first step. Obviously we're never going to agree, but this is a good way for balanced discussion to occur and for all of us to bring the issue to the larger campus community," junior Kim DeFeo, who originally went to Fuchsman with the idea of a forum in the Fall of 1996, said.

"I'm very glad this is happening now, but I'm cautious because I'm hoping that Neuroscience students and faculty members who support animal experimentation won't point to this as a solution if we ever decide to protest again," senior Jonathan Edmonds said. This will let people talk in a rational matter but it won't settle the issue. I don't want people to think this is the be-all and end-all."

Krier said the forum has been much-needed this year for both OAR members and Neuroscience majors. Earlier in the year two OAR members hung themselves from the roof of Mudd Library in protest of vivisection in the introductory Neuroscience courses.

"I'm curious to see what will happen after all this," Krier said.