An Ethical Overview of Animal Welfare and the Use of Antibiotics

Abstract

Antibiotic use in livestock has been indicted for playing a key role in the emerging public health calamity of antibiotic resistance in human beings. While antibiotics are vital medical tools that help to fight bacterial infections, scientific opinion proposes that if animal farmers continue to use them sub-therapeutically in animal feeds, they will pose a severe threat to human health as well as animals. This paper object to the use of antibiotics in animal feeds, not only because it affects human health, but insofar as it also promotes or makes possible farming practices that significantly harm animals, and has no independent value aside from doing so. This paper argues that it is possible to stop the spread of disease through proper sanitation and effective cleaning of farms while providing animals with environments that fit their needs and interests. Furthermore, improvements in production practices that reflect good animal welfare is something that we owe to animals, as they are beings with interests and needs that ought to be respected and protected in the same way that our interests and needs ought to be.