Animal Rights, The rights of animals

[baloop82]

Yay, animal rights. I'm a vegetarian soon to become a vegan in a week when I start working at this farm where they take care of abandoned farm animals and such. Anyway, I just wanted to know peoples' or people's opinions on laboratory testing. not like on makeup cuz that's just bogus but for actual medical research. i'm still iffy on the whole thing.

[Seth]

Well, if it comes down to helping people by hurting animals or not helping people at all, let the animals be used for testing. Although animals should not be caused pain beyond what is necessary for testing. (That was a sentence fragment; I'm proud of myself.)

[Feezor]

Being an employee of the Research Animal Diagnostic Lab at the University of Missouri - Columbia, I see firsthand what animal research ACTUALLY involves. If a person was to read what PETA and other animal rights activists claim, they might think that lab research is a very cruel and horrible thing. They even have pictures of live animals being prodded and poked and all sorts of horrible things. What they do is just pick out a biased representation of lab research and claim that all of it is cruel to the animals. Granted, there will always be some researchers, as well as animal owners and people in general, that are in fact ruthless and beat their animals are treat them in a careless and harmful way. That is not a good basis to completely ban animal research though. People beat and don't care for their children in the same manner, yet obviously we cannot stop reproducing. There are always going to be bad people in this world.
The animals are kept in cages on racks with plenty of food and water and usually a companion so they won't be lonely. Being caged the entire time doesn't bother them because they have never been free, so how are they to know what a free life would be like? Being in a cage is normal for them. That is their life. That's where they are comfortable. When the animals are euthanized, it is painless for them. They never even know what happens, as they are gassed.
I am an animal lover. I have many cats, cattle, turkeys, horses, and a dog. I love each one and would never leave one in a situation where they would suffer. I do not support people who abuse or don't take care of their animals because animals don't deserve that. However, being exposed to animal research, I can personally say that animal research is not cruel and does not make animals suffer. It does however benefit humans by being able to beat pathogens that make people and animals alike suffer.

This post has been edited by Feezor on Jun 26 2003, 02:23 PM

[mjbauer]

I, too, have done animal research, specifically on taiep rats at Saint Louis University, and I find the way it is practiced to be perfectly acceptable. Before any project can be undertaken, it must be approved by multiple animal care boards - the boards must be convinced that there is no way the given results can be found without using animals. If a different way to get the same results exists, especially one without using animals or one that is less invasive, then that course of action will be recommended to the experimenters, and the experiment will have to be modified before it will be approved. Sometimes, even with modifications, the experiment still won't be approved, just to make certain that animals are not harmed unnecessarily. This makes the pace of research sometimes grueling, yet labs take these steps to ensure that harm is minimized.

The goal of animal research is not to inflict unnecessary pain upon animals - standard guidelines in place for all aspects of the animals' care ensure that the animals aren't abused. Like Feezor mentioned, rats (and other animals) aren't isolated, but given companions, not to mention ample food, water, and exercise. Further, Saint Louis University has a policy that all rats who are being worked with regularly (i.e. on a schedule of injections or weighings or any sort of testing done by humans) must be regularly picked up and played with from an early age, so that they're mentally stimulated and, of course, so they get used to human contact. If an animal is in pain, detailed procedures are usually in place for alleviating that pain or, if the severity of their condition is too great, to allow them to die painlessly. Further, all research labs have random inspections by inspectors thoroughly versed in the proper precautions and procedures - thus labs must stay in compliance with guidelines for proper animal care or risk having their research thrown off by weeks, if not months, until they can clean up their act.

Several sets of guidelines must be followed when doing animal research - at the federal level, there are government guidelines for proper animal care, formulated by committees of researchers; at the local level, there are state and county regulations in place, in many cases, and at a given university or testing facility, facility guidelines are in place that are generally even more stringent than the other ones. Contrary to beliefs espoused by PETA and other radical groups, animal researchers aren't uncaring fiends who love to inflict pain upon their animal brethren. Letting all lab animals "free", as some PETA members would undoubtedly like to do, would harm the animals more than a cage will - many animals raised in a lab would be unable to survive on their own. The idea of setting them free is absurd and cruel.

Heh, I thought of an interesting corrolary. Say you had a young child in a "normal" middle class family, perfectly content with his/her regular exercise, regular meals, &c - your family wouldn't mind paying to continue taking care of him/her, especially considering that s/he's only 4 years old and needs near constant care - s/he wouldn't be able to make it in the real world alone. One day an angry mob from PETC (People for the Ethical Treatment of Children) breaks into your house, grabs your child/children, takes him/her/them miles away to some playground, the child's "natural habitat", and says, "Now you're free." The child would be completely dumbfounded, lost, and helpless. (Sure, (1) there are smart children, (2) this scenario is generalized, (3) children eventually get smarter after many years, and rats, who I'm correlating with children, don't, but withstanding those key differences, this was simply meant to be illustrative.) Yet some PETA members think this would be a good thing if done to a rat, cat, or monkey that has never experienced anything outside a lab environment.

Of course, then one might argue that yes, isn't that the point? If we don't do animal research to begin with, animals won't be bred who need that constant care and can't be set free - they'll already be free. Yes, those animals will be free, but millions of people who suffer from multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, Alzheimer's disease, disabling paralysis, kidney disease, heart disease, you name it, will be unable to be helped by animal research. Arguing hypothetical scenarios about setting animals free allows those against animal research to step around the facts - ethical animal research allows humans to be saved from the aforementioned diseases with little harm done to animals.

Forgive me if I'm a little rusty on the argumentation - I still think I've poked holes in a few lies PETA and others try to portray as the truth. Just for the sake of argument, who says animals have rights? One might say that they have rights because God gives them rights - but if that's true, one must take into account that God supposedly gave man rights as masters of all the animals. If one doesn't believe that God gave animals rights, then one must believe in a secular conception of rights stemming from either dignity or property ownership (see Locke's & Rousseau's writings on the Social Contract and such). Animals cannot have rights stemming from property ownership and monetary values, although they can perhaps have a small "right" to dignity -- such a right, however, is taken care of in current codes regarding animal research. (This is assuming one believes in rights at all - if one doesn't believe in some form of secular or spiritually-derived rights, then what would one believe? Further, even if an individual doesn't believe in rights, the government does, at least in principle...and they must uphold those rights.)

As to whether humans have a "right" to experiment upon animals, I'd say to take a good look at the Constitution and reorder the idea of what a right means in (at least) American society - our rights are enumerated in that document, unless something has radically changed. The Constitution is based upon so-called "natural rights" - i.e. things like the Social Contract, &c. Just as protestors don't have a right to destroy labs, there's nothing in the Constitution specifically regarding a right to do animal research. Thus guidelines regarding animals don't necessarily stem from some right, but from laws in place that can vary according to the moral culture of the time in which they were formulated. (As much as it sucks that laws are influenced by popular "morality", they still are - check out how many laws in place are overturned by the Supreme Court, then later reinstated in some milder form - the tides of morality fluctuate regularly.) Further some (more iffy) conceptions of rights have to do with living up to one's potential - by that token, lab animals are fulfilling a sort of right by being in the lab, as they will achieve greater heights in terms of intelligence than they could possibly hope to in the wilderness. Though then one could argue that those animals without a chance to become lab animals are being short-changed...so that argument doesn't really work completely, but it's interesting to contemplate.

Anyway, I'm rambling. That was my 20 cents...my lab partner, fellow Scholar Sherry Jin, and I always meant to make shirts the summer we worked in the lab at SLU that were pro-animal research. The program just never gave us enough money...

This post has been edited by mjbauer on Jun 27 2003, 09:40 AM

[BoBayles]

Not eating meat yourself 'cause you don't want to harm animals is fine. Opposing (and taking steps toward denying) another person's food source is not fine. Refusing to personally study animals to cure your own disease is okay. Trying to deny somebody else the ability to study animals to cure other people's diseases is not okay.
A lot of animal rights activists are motivated by a genuine love for animals (which is fine), but I think the leaders of the radical groups like PETA and the ALF just use crusading for animal rights as a guise for their crusading against human rights. They'd rather see a lab rat running free in the overgrown ruins of a facility they could never hope to build, but could only fight to destroy.

This post has been edited by BoBayles on Jun 27 2003, 02:03 PM

[caitc]

I'm not quite sure on my views for animal rights as in testing and such, at least not as sure as other topics like abortion. but while discussing something political with the most opinionated person I know, a funny thing came up. Not to offend anyone, because even I find it slightly offensive (don't ask, i know it makes no sense.) I was told that in his mind, PETA, stands for People for the Eating of Tasty Animals. I do think God put animals here for us to eat. I know that the manner in which animals are killed for us to eat is wrong and terribly cruel, in many many many cases. I am hoping to go into medical research as a career someday, and with that in mind it is difficult to state an opinion on animal testing. Enough things are known now to where many things tested on animals are not "cruel" in an extreme way... maybe I can finish later, I'm kinda lost...

[Harold Mayo]

Here's me sounding cruel and heartless, but I think that "animal rights" should be a non-issue. If experimentation on animals, whether it's excessively cruel or not, can save HUMAN lives, then I'm all for it. Since it obviously has, then I'm all for it.

PETA actually DOES stand for People for the Eating of Tasty Animals...did anyone imagine otherwise?

It's all good and well to think of cute animals as needing protection from cruel humans but the fact is that we are a higher life form and can and SHOULD do as we please with them (well, nothing sexual, anyway ).

I eat meat with pleasure. I will take medications that aid me even if a million rats and monkeys were tortured and killed to test them. I will CERTAINLY support animal research since it benefits my children.

I support anyone's choice to protest or support whatever they please and, if being a vegetarian or vegan or whatever "floats you boat", then more power to you. I just think that it would then be pretty hypocritical if you wore leather, ate any meat, or used products that are derived from animals or were tested on animals.

[morhandir]

One question: could you elaborate on what you meant by "can and SHOULD do as we please to them"?...the phrasing intrigues me.....
*cheshire type grin* and just to stir up trouble...if you don't feel that animal research that involves torturing animals is wrong...then why do you feel that beastiality, which doesn't harm the animals at all is wrong?

[BoBayles]

I interpreted that as we can use them to our advantage, such as a food source or in advancement of medicine, so we ought to, or else we're being blind to something in our self-interest.
...and I'll leave the other part alone.

[Harold Mayo]

morhandir...by that I mean that not only are we able to do what we please, but that we SHOULD because it is beneficial to our species.

As for the topic...well, it all depends on the size of the animal in question, now, doesn't it...?

[Aubrey_Smith2002]

let's abandon the sick fetish topic now, shall we?

[Ryan]

I agree Aubrey. Try to stay on the original topic guys.

[BoBayles]

Here's a fun information link that pertains to the topic: Activist Cash - PETA.

[emily_6396]

When I was in first grade a man dressed in a rat suit with a graduation cap on his head came to talk to my class about animal testing and a new program call Send a Rat to Collage. It scared me to death because I thought it was a real rat, so I have been in favor of animal testing ever since.

[caitc]

first grade? holy crap, animal testing to me then woulda meant something like chuck-e-cheese was gonna be tested on how to spell "rat". or cat. or bat. oh no! don't do that to chuck-e! lol, i'm still amazed that they could do something like that, not that its bad, but that they would put that effort into first graders. interesting. talk about a captive audience.