Renelle McGlacken: Insights from the Mass Observation Project on life, death, and animal research
The fact we’re prepared to harm animals to postpone our own passing shows only how unhealthy our attitude to mortality is’: Insights from the Mass Observation Project on life, death, and animal research.
Biomedical research using non-human animals currently plays a crucial role in the scientific advancement of human health. Though animal research is claimed to be necessary for future progress in understanding, preventing, and treating medical conditions and promoting human health, conceptions of how long an average human lifespan should be and what lengths we should travel in order to prolong it are not unanimous. Using qualitative data insights from Wellcome Trust funded work, this presentation will discuss how correspondents of the Mass Observation Project, an archive documenting everyday life in Britain, might unsettle assumptions around the moral worth of extending human lives at the expense of those of other animals.
