Do Animals Have a Right Not to Be Sterilized?

Original text Luciano Carlos Cunha · Volume VII, p. 85 of the PDF edition · English translation

29.1. The rights violation objection

As we saw in Chapter 3, the maximization of births contributes to a high degree to maximizing the amount of suffering and premature death. Therefore, one of the main focuses of the proposal to prevent natural harms would be to minimize birth rates.

One objection to this proposal points out that it entails advocating sterilization, and that sterilizing someone against their will violates their rights (such as the right to reproduce and the right to bodily integrity). According to this objection, the right course of action is not to minimize birth rates, even if this means more suffering and death over time.

29.2. Three ways of responding to the rights violation objection

There are at least three ways of responding to the rights violation objection.

There are many ways of helping that would not involve sterilization

The first would point out that all the ways of minimizing natural harms that do not involve sterilization would not violate the alleged right not to be sterilized: vaccinating, treating diseases, providing water, food, shelter, rescue in natural disasters, not recreating the conditions for the maximization of births, etc. Thus, even someone who rejected sterilization would have to accept the proposal to help wild animals in all these cases.

The appeal to consequences

The second response is simply to deny that we should respect rights in circumstances in which doing so would result in an even worse situation than if we did not respect them¹³⁶.

However, in response to this, it could be objected that, to know whether we should respect a rule, what we should do is not assess the consequences of each act, but rather assess whether the

rule would result in the best consequences in most cases if everyone followed it¹³⁷. According to this position, if a rule passes this test, we should always respect it, even in circumstances where violating it would result in better consequences.

The problem with this, however, is that respecting the alleged right not to be sterilized in most cases would have worse results (and therefore would not be a rule that would result in better consequences if everyone followed it). As we saw in Chapter 3, the vast majority of animals have thousands or even millions of offspring per brood, which always results in extremely low survival rates.

Of course, accepting sterilization in these cases does not necessarily mean having to accept it in the case of animals who have few offspring per brood and invest in parental care, since in these cases there is a greater chance that the young will have a meaningful life (although, depending on the circumstances, perhaps even in these cases sterilization would result in better consequences, given that such animals are often in situations of scarcity or disaster). However, concern with consequences would certainly imply accepting sterilization in the vast majority of cases.

Denying the existence of the right in question

So far our reasoning has centered on assessing consequences. However, it could be objected that consequences do not matter for knowing whether or not we should respect a right. According to this position, if a right exists, we should respect it regardless of what the consequences would be (whether of each act or of its general adoption as a rule)¹³⁸.

However, even someone who takes a position of this kind need not accept that sterilization violates rights, since they can: (1) either deny that there is a right not to be sterilized (even while acknowledging the existence of other rights); (2) or accept the existence of the right not to be sterilized, but deny that this right exists in each and every situation.

For example, it could be argued that guaranteeing this right may, in certain cases, entail violating other, more fundamental rights. As we have seen, the defense of the

right not to be sterilized is grounded either in the right to reproduce or in the right to bodily integrity. Below we will look at this point first in relation to the right to reproduce, and then in relation to the right to bodily integrity.

29.3. Discussing the defense of the right to reproduce

Suppose a couple knows that, if they conceive a child now, the child will be born only to experience intense suffering. Anyone who holds that there is a moral right to reproduce in each and every case would have to hold that this couple has the right to have the child anyway (and even if it were not just one child, but a large number of them – drawing an analogy here with the reproductive strategy that maximizes the number of offspring).

To argue that, for there to be a right to reproduce, it is sufficient that the parents have an interest in reproducing is to completely disregard the impact of the decision on the well-being of the beings who will be born. Going without reproducing (or even being sterilized) is a far smaller harm than being born into a life that contains nothing but extreme suffering.

It could be objected that, since the offspring do not yet exist, their well-being does not count. The problem with this response is that, unlike when someone decides not to bring about a birth, when someone decides to bring about a birth, those individuals will come into existence.

It could be objected that this reasoning only makes sense if we do not accept that moral rights exist. But this is not true. Someone could, for example, argue that there are other rights (to life, for example), but not the right to reproduce. Or they could accept that there is a moral right to reproduce, but not in this case. They could hold that this right exists only if certain conditions are met (for example, good chances that the lives of the future beings will be at least minimally meaningful). The situation of animals in the wild, at least that of the vast majority of members of species that maximize offspring (which are the vast majority of species), is an extreme in which these conditions are not present¹³⁹.

29.4. Would sterilization violate a right to bodily integrity?

Whether by surgical intervention or by other methods (for example, offering food containing a sterilizing agent), sterilization is an intervention in someone's body (in the case of nonhuman animals, without their informed consent). On this basis, it could be objected that sterilization violates the right to bodily integrity.

One problem with this objection is that guaranteeing this supposed right to bodily integrity would violate other rights of equal weight or more fundamental ones (for example, the bodily integrity and the lives of third parties). In the case of these reproductions, the bodily integrity and the lives of third parties would be violated (many third parties, thinking here of animals who reproduce by maximizing the number of offspring, who would be born only to suffer and die shortly afterward).

Thus, even if the rights to bodily integrity and to reproduce exist, this would be insufficient to prohibit sterilization (at least in the case of animals whose offspring are born only to suffer intensely), given that the situation of animals in the wild generally does not meet the conditions under which such rights should be guaranteed.

29.5. The human sterilization objection

One objection to the previous conclusion argues that, if it is right to sterilize nonhuman animals because their future offspring cannot have a meaningful life, then it is right to sterilize, against their will, humans who live in poverty.

One problem with this objection is that it fails to distinguish situations in which it is the characteristics of reproduction itself that make it impossible for the lives of future beings to be meaningful from others in which what prevents a meaningful life are social issues. As an example of the first kind of case, we can cite the reproductive strategy that, because of the biology of the animals involved, maximizes the number of offspring far beyond the available resources, or the case in which children will be born with so many diseases and deformities that they will have an existence dominated by intense suffering. Poverty, on the other hand, is an example of the second kind of case.

Thus, for there to be a justification for sterilizing someone (regardless of species) against their will, all three of the following conditions must be met: (1) that, if they reproduce, there is a high probability of giving rise to offspring who would predominantly experience extreme suffering; (2) that there is a high probability of their reproducing; and (3) that there is no other, less harmful and equally efficient way of preventing such reproduction.

29.6. The objection that we should seek other means

The next objection agrees that sterilization is justifiable provided there is no other, less harmful way out. However, it maintains that there is another way out: providing food, resources and basic care to the future offspring.

The problem with this objection is that, given the extremely high number of offspring per reproduction (thousands or even millions per brood), there would have to be an ecosystem of astronomical size with abundant resources, trillions (or quadrillions) of times larger than our planet, for all the offspring to have a minimum of resources available. And even if there were resources available for everyone, and everyone managed to use them, there would still have to be birth control, since, given the gigantic birth rate of these species, resources would quickly become scarce (bearing in mind that the surviving offspring would tend to reproduce, and so on). Thus, at most, this objection can make some sense in the case of animals belonging to species that do not maximize the number of offspring (who are a tiny minority of sentient beings).

Of course, there may be alternatives to sterilization that are just as efficient (or even more efficient) at preventing births. This may be the case with reducing primary productivity, which we will discuss in section 31.18. With less vegetation, the tendency is for this to lead to a decrease in the total birth rate. However, it may be that sterilization causes less harm individually (although reducing primary productivity probably has a better cost/benefit ratio in terms of applicability).

29.7. The animal experimentation objection

Another objection points out that, if it is right to sterilize someone against their will to prevent harm to other sentient beings, then it is right to force someone to serve as a research model. However, in the case of animal experimentation, it is not the animals used who are about to cause harm to other sentient beings, but rather the diseases of which those other beings are victims. In the case of sterilization, by contrast, it is the very bodily activity of those who reproduce that gives rise to millions of deaths. In the case of animal experimentation, it is possible to choose to research other means of curing diseases without using animals. In the case of the suffering and deaths caused by the maximization of animals' reproduction, by contrast, there is no way to reduce them without preventing the reproduction itself. Of course, as we have seen, it may be impossible to prevent this reproduction by other means, such as reducing primary productivity. But whatever means is employed, it is different from the case of animal experimentation.

29.8. Conclusion

The sterilization of domesticated animals is widely accepted by animal advocates. And the reason is precisely the amount of suffering and death caused by reproduction rates. Dogs and cats have on average 4 or 5 offspring per litter. These reproduction rates tend to cause a great deal of suffering and death in the long run, but compared with what happens in the case of animals who have thousands or millions of offspring per brood, these numbers almost vanish. Thus, in the case of the vast majority of wild animals, we have much stronger reasons to justify sterilization.

Let us draw an analogy with the human species. Let us imagine that every time someone reproduced they produced millions of children, and that only two survived while the rest were born only to suffer to the extreme. In that situation we would view sterilization (and even genetic reprogramming) with relief and hope, not with revulsion (rightly so, in my view).

The fact that many people have one kind of attitude toward humans and domesticated animals, and the opposite attitude toward wild animals, may reflect various factors. One of them may be the mistaken belief that animals in the wild normally live well. Another is the idea that the good of wild animals matters very little, and that they matter only as components of ecosystems and specimens of species. As we have seen in other chapters, such attitudes are unjustifiable. The general situation of wild animals comprises the cases in which sterilization programs are most easily justified.