Peter Singer in his book "Animal Rights" argues that specism is an extension of the logic of racism and sexism. If we are performing experiments on animals that we would not perform on humans simply because they are a different species to us then this the same sort of injustice that discriminates by gender and race. Singer is of the view that there is not a large ethical gap between humans and other species. True, many humans can do things animals cannot do, but there are also many animals that can do more than some humans - for example with humans the sick, the elderly and babies are in general less capable than many animals. Animals deserve the same sort of respect and treatment that we would offer to less capable humans. In reply to the argument that if we perform certain experiments on animals we can make advances in medical science, Singer would ask if it would be ethical to perform these experiments on humans, even less capable humans. If it would not, then we are being guilty of specicism to perform these experiments on animals.

There is a great deal of discussion over how effective animal experiments are. Groups like the BUAV (British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection) argue against animal experiments on the grounds that the experiments are scientifically flawed - we do not understand enough about the differences between animals and humans to be able to conclude if a successful experiment on an animal will be successful on a human or an unsuccessful one will be unsuccessful. The fact that there are some successful experiments - such as the German scientist Robert Koch's experiments on mice injected with anthrax bacilli - does not disprove this. There were some successful blood transfusions even before people understood about blood groups. The fact remains - it is argued - that we are unable to predict whether an experiment performed on an animal will be applicable to humans.

Some animal rights supporters accept that animal experiments provide scientifically useful information but reject them on ethical grounds. The animal rights theologian Rev Andrew Linzey (whose first book on the subject actually slightly predates Singer's "Animal Rights") believes experimenting on animals can provide genuinely useful scientific knowledge. Such knowledge however he calls "ill-gotten gains", arguing that we cannot ethically forcibly imprison and experiment on animals. He calls humans the "servant species" who should follow Christ's example of sacrificial love. One of the sacrifices we must make in caring for those species weaker and more vulnerable than ourselves is to willingly forsake scientific knowledge derived from animal experiments.

Another argument against animal experiments involves funding. It we are serious about saving lives, it is argued, then the money spent on animal experiments can be better spent on alternative programs for saving lives - improved health education and awareness of preventable diseases in the west, more investment in public health and food production programs in developing countries. Animal experimentation is much more about large drug companies exploiting animals to make money on new drugs than about saving lives.

The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 requires that animal experiments, such as those carried out at Huntingdon Life Sciences, need only be licensed if they are liable to cause "pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm". Each year, nearly three million such experiments take place in the UK.
Source: letter from BUAV to The Sunday Telegraph, 25th July 2004

The UK Government provides minimal funding for so-called "alternatives" to animal experiments. Out of a total budget of £1 billion a year for medical research - rising to £1.2 billion a year by 2007-2008 - the annual budget for alternatives of £280,000.
Source: BUAV Newsletter June 2004

Moving on to other aspects of Animal Rights we simply apply the specism argument to see if we are consistent in the way we treat animals with how we treat our own species. If we do not think it is acceptable to breed people in order to later kill them use their dead bodies for various products such as food, why is it acceptable to do this to animals? If we do not think it is acceptable to fund mental hospitals by charging people to look around at the patients, why do we think it is acceptable to charge visitors to zoos?

The evils of racism and sexism have been accompanied by a moral blindness by many in society as to the injustice these terms identified. Is the same the case for specicism?