La relazione presentata da Pasqualino Santori al congresso Mondiale di Etica Veterinaria a Vancouver

1. Veterinary Medicine and ethical (global)
choices for the future
Dr Pasqualino Santori p.santori@tiscali.it
President of the Veterinary Bioethics Committee, Rome, Italy; former member of National Bioethics
Committee, Italy; DVM; Master in Behavior Therapy
John Betti
Historical various tasks of vets
Since the beginning veterinary science’s purposes
have been to treat animals to save their lives
when they are in bad conditions
and also to check them to determine the
‘perfect condition’ of health before the slaughtering.
This is the general social demand
from veterinary science.
An ethical problem
In the last decades it has been attributed a major moral value to the
animals. This fact brought changes into Western Countries’ legislation.
Animals are not considered just things by ordinary people, an
intrinsic value is given to them.
But there isn’t a simple justification of zoological nature to distinguish
between animals good to eat and animals good for company ( like between
cattle and dogs), moreover this vision can take away any intrinsic
value to the animals giving value only to the use of them as food or pet; A generalized vegan choices can bring to the extinction of several
in the same way when Catilina made his horse senator. domestic species because of the lack of demand. It could create
Besides, different cultures that now coexist eat what other people take care of. an animalism without animals.
The problem is increasing: people usually don’t practice what they preach.
For livestock, on one hand there is the welfare interest and on the other hand an increasing pressure of the
markets, which brings to the industrialization of farms with the consequential lost of the individual care. For pets we
can see a more commercial behavior, rich of contradictions such as: wild animals as pets, suffering dog breeds,
animals as consuming goods rather than living beings.
Consumers wants to Some people keep Many people
pay less for animals wild animals don’t acknowledge
products without (not domesticated) that some
realizing the as pets justifying breeds of dog that
consequences of this with ‘love for appear to be
animals living nature and animals’. funny or particularly
conditions. cute are affected
by genetic
malformations.
Animal breeding is accused of pollution,
in particular in the global warming, and
for the consumption of human edible
Pets are recognized members of human
food (according to the modern system of
families. Pet therapy is considered with great
breeding)
interest.
Veterinary profession, its duties, and the unity in the diversity
Veterinary science cannot have, even if it could, the same superficial attitude as the rest of humanity for ethical and practical reasons. Veterinary
science needs to go beyond the people’s perspective in order to fulfill its purposes. In programming investments it must be able to foresee the
developments in reasonable time, for both the advantage and the social acceptance of the profession. Moreover, the improvement of the distinction
between animals good to eat from animals good for company represent a problem to maintain a unity in the diversity of the profession. Now more
than ever, vets have a historic function in consideration of the social and technological development that humanity had had with the domestication
of animals and plants (Neolithic permitted the rise of social organization and alimentary crisis we must remember this). The mixture of ethical and
scientific problems and the needs to find solutions, at least transitory, needs to find a form of governance like permitted by bioethics.
Bioethics Bioethics gives a model of Governance:
Applied ethics not theoretic
The formation of the bioethics committees for their multidisciplinary
Multidisciplinary
and pluralism of values with the finality of an applied ethics faces
Exchange of experiences and views
daily problems that give inputs for political choices
Pluralism of values
Veterinary Bioethics Committee – Rome, Italy
The Veterinary Bioethics Committee was founded in 1997. This initiative was taken as a response to the need, widely felt inside the veterinary
profession, to constitute a suitable forum for a diversified and multidisciplinary discussion on the themes concerning human relationship with
animals. One of the main functions of the Committee is to debate, within a broader context, the problems that veterinary surgeons often have to
face alone, and to compare professional experience with other social actors, who may be equally involved in the same problems, but are
characterized by a different professional experiences and a different operational context. The Committee sees itself as an observatory and a
laboratory of study, with the main objective to sensitize civil society to the ethical problems stemming from the way in which we relate ourselves to
the animal world. Pluralism of expertise is meant to correspond to a real pluralism of values: in the committee there are widely different, even
antithetic moral positions concerning human relationship with animals. The Committee modus operandi has been eminently practical, giving
consideration to specific problematic cases, from an ethical point of view, with the purpose of providing tools for the sensitization of the civil
society and showing possible ways for the elimination or the reduction of conflicts. The Committee thought that the most suitable approach was
not to put the emphasis on theoretical issues but rather to debate practical issues and to allow the theoretical aspects to come thus to surface. A
different choice could have paralyzed the work in a potentially sterile discussion, certainly interesting but not profitable for the purpose of producing
practical indications. Personal convictions and theoretical principles are on purpose given a back seat so as to make possible the dialogue between
different positions, to stimulate attention to different points of view and to identify possible consensus among people with very different ethical
paradigms. www.comitatobioeticoperlaveterinaria.it
Composition Working methods Publications
•Agreement of the problem relevance by C.G. Edizioni Medico Scientifiche, Torino:
Veterinarians
Philosophers •Plenary meetings
1. Protection of animals during transport,1999,p.110
Jurists •Experts interviews 2. Procedures for informed and responsible clinical
Economists •Commissions work decision: observations on the so called informed
Ethologists •Involvement of temporary members consent in Veterinary, 2000. p.74
Farmers/Breeders •“Brainstorming!” 3. Killing of animals. Euthanasia. Topics for a moral
Animal rights activists •Focusing on critical points analysis, 2001.p.166
4. Killing of animals for food supplies:
Consumer association members •Definition of temporary common grounds
slaughtering, 2003, p.122
Anthropologists •Elaboration a document which is 5. The bioethical problem of dangerous dogs:
Psychologists approved by the plenary analysis of human and animal interests, 2006, p.154
Pedagogues •Expression of minority or personal opinions
National Bioethics Committee of the Italian Government: www.governo.it/bioetica/index.html
Among the other issues, the CNB was interested also in animals’ issues such as:
Animal experimentation and the health of living beings (1997); Bioethics and Veterinary Science. Animal welfare and humane health (2001)
Ritual slaughtering and animal suffering (2003); Bioethical problems in relation with pet therapy (2005); Cutting of tail and hears (2006)