Texas State study: Policymakers should consider animal welfare in decisions

Research & Innovation

Jayme Blaschke | July 17, 2023

New research from Bob Fischer, an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at Texas State University, argues that incorporating animal welfare into policymaking may improve policy and practice. 

Fischer co-authored the study along with Mark Budolfson, a faculty member at the Center for Population-Level Bioethics at Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research, and Noah Scovronick, a faculty member at Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. The researchers observed that animal welfare is rarely considered during policymaking, explained why current tools make it hard to incorporate the wellbeing of animals into public policy and identified methods for remedying these issues. 

Their study, “Animal welfare: Methods to improve policy and practice,” is published in the journal Science (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi0121).  

“Animal welfare is often ignored in policymaking, despite its relevance across many domains ranging from food systems to biomedical research to climate policy,” said Fischer, one of three co-authors of the study. “Part of the reason animal welfare is ignored is that policymakers currently lack established methods for integrating animal welfare into decision-making.” 

The researchers point out that there are well-developed tools for incorporating human welfare into policy analysis, but comparable tools for incorporating animal welfare are in their earliest stages of development. For example, no-kill animal shelters help offset public discomfort with euthanizing unwanted animals. A policy question might be: Should these animal shelters be publicly subsidized to avoid having to euthanize pets if those subsidies diverted resources from other human interests?  

New tools, such as those presented by the study authors, may help policymakers assess the welfare impacts of a policy like this on humans and animals on a common scale. 

"It is commonplace for decision makers to weigh the costs and benefits of different policies," said Budolfson. “We describe emerging methods that allow animal welfare impacts to be included in those calculations.”

The team suggests conducting interdisciplinary research to develop and refine methods for quantifying interspecies welfare, utilizing measurable correlations between animals and humans, and ensuring animal welfare is included in policy debates. 

“There are so many areas where animal welfare matters, both familiar as well as less obvious,” Fischer said. “For example, many governments aim to improve farm productivity while reducing land use and greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, some of the most straightforward ways of doing this have negative implications for animal welfare, often due to high stocking densities. When, if ever, is it better to increase environmental sustainability if it reduces animal welfare?"

“The bottom line is that it’s a mistake to ignore the effect of our public policies on wild and domestic animals,” said Scovronick. “Our decisions affect other species and in turn other species affect us, whether it’s through diseases that can be transmitted back and forth, through the productivity of our food supply or any of many other possible examples.” 

The research was supported by Longview Philanthropy, Open Philanthropy, and Rethink Priorities.