Animal Cruelty Or Necessary Research?
Published in The Hartford Courant
From courant.com
One experiment on monkeys has stopped at the University of Connecticut, but
the true controversy is not about violating regulations. It’s whether such
labs should exist at all.
The idea that scientists ought to have non-human primates at their disposal
relies on finding some ethical borderline between humans and all other
animals.
In July 2005, the journal Science published a report involving a panel of 22
scientists, lawyers and philosophers who, for more than a year, debated over
stem cell research using monkeys. The team’s scientists weren’t sure how to
ethically separate humans from other primates.
Regulating drug dosages and the training of handlers does not mitigate the
ethical concern about treating other animals as instruments - animals who,
once conscious of their lives, have individual value unto themselves.
Implicated here are deeper questions than university administrators or the
U.S. Department of Agriculture can reach. Monkeys are caged, and they die,
at UConn and elsewhere, during experiments that follow the USDA protocols.
Tidying up these experiments isn’t enough. It’s time for humanity to evolve
beyond the habit of using other animals as little surrogate people.
Priscilla Feral
President
Friends of Animals
Darien, CT
Copyright 2007, Hartford Courant
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4 Comments
On January 23, 2007, James wrote:
I think everyone at FoA should be made aware if you are not already that in the Netherlands, there is a political party called “Partij voor De Dieren” (Party for The Animals), an animal rights party, and they now actually have two seats in the Dutch Parliament. In other words, animals in the Netherlands now have a voice in Parliament.
A similar pary has just been formed in the UK called “Animals Count” but they have no seats in Parliament as yet.
My hope is that these parties do not start making welfare concessions.
On February 18, 2007, Baaboo wrote:
It postively astounds me the ignorance and arrogrance of the human race. Who or what gave you the right to tortue another living creature for any reason? Animal experiments cannot be scientifically or morally justified. Animal experiments are flawed, misleading and even delay medical progress. The fundamental flaw of animal experiments is species difference. All species respond differently to different chemicals and therefore are structural and physisological differences between species affects the outcome of experiments making them unreliable. Make no mistake, animal experiments are done for one reason and one reason only…gigantic sums of government money.
On February 22, 2008, Heather Athy wrote:
Using animals in experiments is wrong. END of story!
On September 15, 2010, peter chlebogiannis wrote:
when it comes to animal testing i have a simple rule, i could tell you how cruel it is or what they do or what it doesn’t prove but i find this method to work a lot better, i send this message to the owners CEOs and officials of companies who test on animals, if you can sit through watching animal testing then by all means go nuts, but I can promise you, you can’t.