Bioethica Forum / 2020 / Volume 13 / No. 1 43 BEHINDERUNG UND ETHIK / HANDICAP ET ETHIQUE / DISABILITY AND ETHICS Animal disability and biotechnological interventions Catia Faria Centre for Ethics, Politics and Society, University of Minho unchallenged. Alternatively, we should claim “not that ‘marginal cases’ should be treated alike, but that there are no marginal cases, because neurotypical human adults should never have been defned as the norm from which others are measured.” [12, p. 239]. Along this line of reasoning, Sunaura Taylor [13-16] has ar- gued that all nonhuman animals can thus be consid- ered crips, in the sense that we judge them by spe- cies-specifc neurotypical human standards and thus devalue them for “lacking in the various abilities and capacities that have long been held to make human lives uniquely valuable and meaningful.” [16, p. 43]. Speciesism is thus always an ableism, which places both animals and disabled humans into a common, subaltern condition. Here, while fully endorsing Tay- lor’s position, I will claim that even though all nonhu- man animals are crips in this sense, some are more crips than others. Namely, those with physical disabil- ities. This is particularly the case, I will argue, regard- ing animals living in the wild. Animal disability in the wild Unlike humans and other animals under human con- trol, wild animals are, in general, anonymous. We can make estimations about their numbers and wherea- bouts, but we do not have accurate records of them. Notwithstanding this, many are aware of, and increas- ingly concerned about, wild animals’ high exposure to natural processes [see 17 for an overview]. They sys- tematically experience physical trauma, live in places with a high density of predators and parasites, face conficts with conspecifcs and have to endure con- stant variations of food, water and temperature. An additional physical disability will likely result in a lower capacity to cope with natural processes, by de- creasing animals’ ability to escape peril situations, fol- low their conspecifcs and prevent them from feeding and drinking properly. This explains, for the most part, why physically disabled wild animals are invisible – they are very quickly assimilated in the environment by predators and scavengers. Such individual and en- vironmental conditions are typically overlooked. Yet, they make up for an increased vulnerability of wild an- imals, signifcantly exacerbated by human disregard. Disabled wild animals are thus worse off and their disadvantageous situation imposes strong ethical de- mands on us. Viewpoint Abstract The overlaps between disability studies and animal studies have ex- tensively been explored in the literature, although not without contro- versy. Most recently, disability theorist Sunaura Taylor has claimed that all nonhuman animals can be considered crips, since what it means to be able is determined by species-specifc neurotypical human stand- ards. Here, while fully endorsing Taylor’s position, I will claim that even though all nonhuman animals are crips in this sense, some are more crips than others. Namely, nonhuman animals with physical disabilities living in the wild. Such increased vulnerability entails that wild animals are worse off and that their disadvantageous situation imposes strong ethical demands on us. Next, I will claim that one way to comply with such demands is to extend prosthetic devices, which are increasingly being applied to companion animals, to wild animals in similar condi- tion. Finally, I will claim that opposition to these and other biotechno- logical interventions on the basis of their being infeasible or against na- ture are ultimately ungrounded. Disability studies and animal studies are overlapping felds of inquiry. Such overlaps have extensively been explored by several animal ethicists, most notably, in the controversial “argument from marginal cases” [1- 7]. In short, the argument claims that whatever attrib- ute we may appeal to draw a moral divide between humans and nonhumans – usually, a set of complex cognitive capacities – will either fail to be exemplifed by all humans (e.g., individuals with cognitive disabili- ties), or will be possessed by some nonhumans as well. This is sometimes more accurately called the phenom- enon of “species overlap” [8]. It follows from this phe- nomenon that either we exclude some human beings from the scope of full moral consideration or we extend such scope to include nonhuman animals as well. The argument has been highly criticised by disability the- orists, by stressing its implicit endorsement of a neu- rotypical conception of human cognition as the default criterion of moral considerability, while allowing for other forms of subjective experience to remain on the sidelines [9-11]. Mainstream animal ethicists disagree with the charge, emphasising that the point of the argu- ment is precisely to claim equal consideration between neurotypical and ‘marginal’ cases and to expand such consideration irrespective of species membership. Yet, as an increasing number of scholars are now acknowl- edging, the argument still implies a certain model of normalcy-deviance, which remains, for the most part,