Evidences of respect
The animal protesters have been at it again, but this time the scientists (and others) are fighting back. I find it rather ironic that, while the anti-lab protests I've seen (see photo) have been roughly equally police and protesters, apparently the pro-lab people numbered in the many hundreds. 
The Animal People (for want of a better term) have announced that all of the University’s students and staff are legitimate targets. Tee-hee-ho, as my housemate H would say. What larks.
The thing is, you see, that I’m actually pretty much against animal testing. To say that we, as human beings, have the right for our own purposes to inflict injury and death on other creatures who can’t fight back is a dangerous thing. There have been (and still are) too many individuals or whole societies who will define as non-human other human beings – Jews, or homosexuals, or Native Americans, or people with mental illnesses, or people of any ethnic minority – for me to be comfortable with the idea that our power over other species should be so far-reaching. I’m not claiming that animals have “rights” per se, but that we have a responsibility not to demean our humanity by exploiting our ability to use and abuse any sentient being which is weaker than we are. After all, as Gandhi said, “the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.”
To define biomedical research as “cruelty” is to use an emotional discourse which is far more appropriate to cosmetic testing, or to fox-hunting or dog fighting or any of those activities whose “sport” lies in the enjoyment of an animal’s pain. I’m assuming that this new biomedical lab (whose work with animals, incidentally, will apparently only be a small part of its overall research mission) is not going to be a place of wanton animal torture and cruelty. In fact, from all I’ve heard, there will be high standards of care for the animals used there, which is laudable. But I nonetheless still disagree with animal testing. If you could prove to me that the discomfort or death of, say twenty rabbits, would definitely produce the answers the scientists need in order to make important medical advances, I would consider that that was probably a justifiable exchange. But the problem is that this testing is precisely that – testing. The outcome may be nothing at all except possibly injured or dead animals, and a human culture which believes in its own right to do what it will with weaker species.
It may surprise you, all this being said, that I will not be protesting against the new research lab. And this brings us back to the Animal People. To a greater or a lesser extent, they are disrupting the work of an entire academic establishment. I’ve had my own research set back by their protests, and I’m solidly in the humanities division – the only way animals come into my work is when I have recourse to my stuffed-toy bunny for comfort when the writing’s going badly! I also know people whose working day is constantly disturbed by these protests because they happen to be scientists who work in the Science Area – although they are theoretical physicists or psychologists who work with computer modelling. And I’ve heard from friends about protesters trying to hand their leaflets, which are often very disturbing, to primary-school children on their way to and from lessons.
The Animal People have turned rational protest into hysterical terror tactics, and to align oneself with the animal-rights movement and against the new lab feels like aligning oneself with these destructive and counter-productive protesters. In their zeal, they have turned many moderate people like me, who are against animal testing on principle, against their cause.
The Animal People (for want of a better term) have announced that all of the University’s students and staff are legitimate targets. Tee-hee-ho, as my housemate H would say. What larks.
The thing is, you see, that I’m actually pretty much against animal testing. To say that we, as human beings, have the right for our own purposes to inflict injury and death on other creatures who can’t fight back is a dangerous thing. There have been (and still are) too many individuals or whole societies who will define as non-human other human beings – Jews, or homosexuals, or Native Americans, or people with mental illnesses, or people of any ethnic minority – for me to be comfortable with the idea that our power over other species should be so far-reaching. I’m not claiming that animals have “rights” per se, but that we have a responsibility not to demean our humanity by exploiting our ability to use and abuse any sentient being which is weaker than we are. After all, as Gandhi said, “the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.”
To define biomedical research as “cruelty” is to use an emotional discourse which is far more appropriate to cosmetic testing, or to fox-hunting or dog fighting or any of those activities whose “sport” lies in the enjoyment of an animal’s pain. I’m assuming that this new biomedical lab (whose work with animals, incidentally, will apparently only be a small part of its overall research mission) is not going to be a place of wanton animal torture and cruelty. In fact, from all I’ve heard, there will be high standards of care for the animals used there, which is laudable. But I nonetheless still disagree with animal testing. If you could prove to me that the discomfort or death of, say twenty rabbits, would definitely produce the answers the scientists need in order to make important medical advances, I would consider that that was probably a justifiable exchange. But the problem is that this testing is precisely that – testing. The outcome may be nothing at all except possibly injured or dead animals, and a human culture which believes in its own right to do what it will with weaker species.
It may surprise you, all this being said, that I will not be protesting against the new research lab. And this brings us back to the Animal People. To a greater or a lesser extent, they are disrupting the work of an entire academic establishment. I’ve had my own research set back by their protests, and I’m solidly in the humanities division – the only way animals come into my work is when I have recourse to my stuffed-toy bunny for comfort when the writing’s going badly! I also know people whose working day is constantly disturbed by these protests because they happen to be scientists who work in the Science Area – although they are theoretical physicists or psychologists who work with computer modelling. And I’ve heard from friends about protesters trying to hand their leaflets, which are often very disturbing, to primary-school children on their way to and from lessons.
The Animal People have turned rational protest into hysterical terror tactics, and to align oneself with the animal-rights movement and against the new lab feels like aligning oneself with these destructive and counter-productive protesters. In their zeal, they have turned many moderate people like me, who are against animal testing on principle, against their cause.
posted by EJ at 10:36 am
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