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Originally Posted by Hip Priest
Perhaps I should remind people that I'm an animal-loving vegetarian, perhaps not (it's probably relevent though). I'm also a libertarian, tolerant of others choices. However, I find it utterly incredible that as a society we breed people who are willing to spend their days inflicting torture. At what point does the medical profession pick people off and put them into this kind of field? And if the medical profession spots that one of it's own would make a good torturer, then I would say that the first thing they should do is evict them. It makes me angry that I pay taxes for certain things, but it makes me close to feeling physically sick that I pay for torture.
PArt of the problem, I think, is that people don't have a full view, because to have a full view is close to impossible due to the higher authority assumed by (and accorded to) the researchers; we are allowed knowledge of the success stories, but denied knowledge of the millions of tortured animals, of the extent of the suffering and of the massive cost and innefficiency of the system. The vast majority of people - even those who read the anti-animal testing literature - have litle idea of the severity of what occurs, or of the way the so-called 'rigorously-enforced safeguards' are flouted. Letting some of the public into the laboratories, to see for themselves what happens, would change society in a big way - by removing the distance, we would allow people to make genuinely informed choices for the first time (and of course advances in knowledge should be explained if there are any). But that's exactly why it's not going to happen soon.
The public at large, unless they are motivated to carry out a massive amount of research and/or direct action, are kept misinformed on this issue. Every stage of the process indicates clearly that this is deliberate - and the scientists performing the research recieve more and more protection and are granted more and more secrecy. Indeed it is now illegal in the UK to hold any kind protest outside the laboratories.
Alright then.
This is one of the central questions to the issue, but there's a distinction to be made. Your question assumes that the cure already exists, and even though that cure may have been discovered in an immoral way through immoral behaviour, utilising pre-existing knowledge is different from continuing to behave immorally and seeking out new immorally-discovered solutions. For example, the torure inflicted upon bats to discover how their sonar works was despicable, but we shouldn't attempt to forget the knowledge that we now have.
The toughter question would be to ask 'your mother is dying from a disease, there is one chance for her to survive and its something that is currently being reseached through animal testing.
In the first case, using pre-existing knowledge, I'd want my mother to be saved. BUt the fact rmains that I want animal teting to cease, for two reasons:
1 It's wrong to assume the right of torture over other species.
2 There's much evidence that developed solutions affect humans differently from how they affect animals. Therefore much of the research is worthless, and the torture all the more wrong.
That said, of course, if were to hold ten rats in front of me and say, case-specific, 'it's these rats or yout mother', then I'll pick my mother without hesitation, because I am a human being and therfore selfish.
But the question isn't one of 'this rat' versus 'this person': we're not going to have animal testing policy defined by people whose mothers are about to die any more than we're about to have sentencing of burglars defined by the burgled or school curricula defined by rabid religious bigots. From an objective assesment I believe that animal testing is both morally wrong and desperately inneficient.
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