I want to start this off by saying I am an animal lover, I have eight dogs, four cows, five chickens, three horses, a pony, a mini mule, and a cat to prove it. With that being said in all honesty I have to say I am a minimalist when
it comes to the debate on animal testing.
I feel that it is a necessary evil, is it fair, most definitely not. But
when disease spreads all anyone wants is results, and results come from a dark
place that has a tendency to be ignored because everyone feels guilty about
where it’s coming from. In the case of
small pox for example (the deadliest disease known to man) animals were and
still are detrimental to providing a vaccine that will combat any threat of an
outbreak. I once read a book called The Demon in the Freezer, one of the
most horrifying accounts I’ve ever read about smallpox but it opens the mind to
where people would be without the sacrifice of these animals. While everyone
would like new advances such as stated in the text with the three R’s
(Reduction, Replacement, Refinement), technology just isn’t there yet. In the
mean time I feel that abolitionists are hurting their cause by wasting effort
and money on protests on scientist who are going to keep doing what they are doing
because it is what is best for the human population. Instead they could be
using that time to find faster technology to speed the process along to a time
where animals won’t be needed for testing. Do I advocate for torturing animals,
I believe strongly in the regulations and guidelines that research facilities
have to fulfill to even start researching with animals. And in any case there
is a lot of hypocrisy going on in the background, PETA, one of the biggest if
not the biggest advocate for animal rights, kills a large amount of animals
each year, animals that could have been used for a better cause rather than
just killing it off. I love my animals but when it comes to self-preservation
for now there is just no other way to safely make people healthy without the
use of these animals.
I largely agree with you, since I am too a minimalist, no animals should have to suffer, but that’s no means to go destroy their research facilities or harass their families. I didn’t really think about it, but you bring up a good point abolitionist could be helping or working themselves on way ,to improve medicinal testing, so that animal won’t go through that. You are also right, right now we don’t really have the technology to stray from animal testing as much as we would want it, so I guess we just need to wait until it comes our way
ReplyDelete