h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The reason that I so hate many animal rights protesters - especially those targeting Huntington Life Sciences, which is very close to home for me, is that they seem utterly unable to understand that there is a choice being made. If you ask someone 'Bunny or granny?' they will invariably opt for granny, but some people don't seem to understand that drugs do actual save lives, and often make them infinitely more bearable. We're not just talking about those people who get the drugs benefitting from animal testing, but also all those spared initial drugs testing which would otherwise have to be carried out on humans.

It might be okay if these protesters were choosing a bunny as as worthwhile as their own granny, but they are also making that choice, unilaterally, for everyone else. I have always supported necessary drugs testing on animals, but my view only counts for one person. The fact that society as a whole has opted in favour of such testing, that we have laws to allow it, mean that unless they want to spit at the social contract any one of us has agreed to in living in a society, that protesters should respect the will of others. Otherwise they have no right to health care, income support, schooling, housing, the protection of the law, etc., all of which rights come with the responsibilities of belonging to a society.

I completely agree. It's the thinkning "I don't agree with un-necessary cruelty, so I am going to threaten this mans' family, and then put a bomb in his car, because he wants to stop suffering in others." that really annoys me.
If I could save your life by sticking my hand down a dogs' throat, and pulling it's insides out, and strangling it with them, then I would. I wouldn't like it, because I'm not a cruel person, but it would be a logical choice.
The point is, is that this never happens. The animals are not mis-treated, and are given a fairly good life, until they are used. And when they are used, it is done as humanely as possible. The scientist gets no pleasure when the animal is in pain. It is just the way it has to be.


wide

I agree with what you are saying 100%, It is not the nicest thing but a lot of good comes from testing medicines on animals.

There may eventually come a time when testing medicines and drugs on animals is not required, but until that time comes then we will have to make do.

Roll on the time when we don't have to use animals for test subjects.

I'm one of those anti-vivisectionists that you "hate" so much, Smiley Ben.

If a situation were to arise where I had to choose between medication or surgery for one of my children and the life of an animal, then I would obviously choose my child (although in the depths of the school summer holidays I might feel differently ).

There are methods of testing drugs and surgery without using animals but they happen to be more expensive. There are also organisations that support and practice these methods.

Please remember that the pharmaceutical industries and their supporting network of suppliers are all in business for profit and not for the greater good of mankind, as they'd like the public to believe. If they can get away with using animals that have no legal rights or voice and are a less expensive method over a more expensive method, which do you think they and their shareholders would choose?

I find the behaviour of the most militant and extremist ALF-types to be wholly abhorrent and nauseating, and utterly unjustifiable. Threatening people's families over the sake of a couple of rabbits? The mind boggles.

One thing that seems to avoid consideration is that without these testing programmes, these animals wouldn't exist anyway. Their whole raison d'etre is to be tested upon - not through choice, obviously, but the point remains that if such testing was banned, companies would have to destroy hundreds of such lab animals, as they would be unable to enter a domestic setting or be released into the wild.

I know the above reason isn't exactly a great argument for why testing should continue, but the lack of thought demonstrated by certain sectors of the Animal Rights movement are worrying. Take the release of all those mink from fur farms - True, having them all locked in cages to be turned into some rich person's coat is not pleasant, but letting them into the environment is nothing short of a disster. Most wouldn't survive, and those that did would cause catastrophic damage to the native wildlife. I'd rather be able to enjoy songbirds in the morning than have a horde of liberated mink eating my cat, the birds, the neighbours' gerbils, defoecating in my garden etc.

I would never go out and deliberately hurt anyone or anything, but I can sympathise with the frustration of some ALF activists and believe that they do receive bad press coverage.

The lab animals would be killed in the long run by their owners so your argument that they would have to be killed where animal vivisection to cease is a pretty thin one. It is a similar argument to the culling for the Foot & Mouth outbreak. What the press fail to report is that millions of animals are slaughtered every week for food. These unfortunate beasts are being slaughtered under a condition that results in a loss of profits to their owners.

The release of mink from the fur farm in the New Forest was an unfortunate occurrence and I can't see that any responsible animal rights activist would have done it and find it hard to lay the blame at their door.

However, if the animals hadn't been there to be released in the first place to supply an abhorrent trade, then the incident wouldn't have taken place.

Most organisations try to get extra support and sympathy from high profile happenings;the ALF don't seem to get this...

Once upon a time things like shampoo *had* to be tested on animals, in all sorts of nasty ways involving orifices, thank goodness that has stopped. Over and over again, it turns out that the nasty things that happen (feeding cows on sheeps' brains, removal of babies' organs, shampoo and bunnies) boil down to human arrogance. Let's look long and hard at things, and be certain that is really the best way, before such practices go on.

I wouldn't try to defend anyone behaving like a terrorist but I would take issue with the view expressed by Smiley Ben that "society as a whole has opted in favour of such testing". I don't know about anyone else here but nobody has ever asked me whether I'm in favour of it. I've never voted for it and I don't suppose many people who voted for a party at a general election imagined they were voting in favour of vivisection.

An example that underlines the point about the will of the people currently, is the hunting with hounds bill that's been passed to the House of Lords for their decision. The majority of our elected representatives in the House of Commons have voted to ban hunting with hounds but the unelected Lords will probably put the kibosh on that decision. The point is, society means all of us, not just a powerful few and all of us are not asked so it's misleading to say that "society has opted" for this or that thing.

Sal

Well actually, the party I voted for won the last general election and they said they were going to put funds into alternatives to testing on animals. They haven't done so up to now. I recently signed a petition requesting that they should get their finger out and keep their promise. So as far as that goes, you could say that "society has opted against animal testing".

I'll give the Labour party their due as they did introduce (albeit not an immediate one) a ban on the testing of cosmetics on animals. However, they still need to pull their fingers out about (and from) a lot of things and they seem to be pandering to large business conglomerates far too much!

I gave up on Tory Blaire's "New Labour" and joined the Green Party a few of years ago. Its fun being in a minority party don't y'know!

Fun but pointless. Join a party that at least has some MPs, or you won't make any difference. The green party has a bad rep for being full of people who don't take the time to properly research their agenda. They will never be voted for my the masses because of this. At least if you vote for the Lib Dems you have more of a chance of representation, and also, as they are very constituency based, you have more chance of them actually listening to you.
They're also more left wing than Labour at the mo.

sorry, political diatribe over. You have a vote, use it responsibly.

wide

That was my posting which was removed. If I offended anyone by expressing a political opinion in non revolutionist terms I am deeply sorry. I can't believe this was removed, I feel deeply betrayed by the censors.
How can we have a political discussion without expressing opinion?

wide

It was removed in error. Apologies.

Did you notice how this conversation just ground to a halt when that message was removed?

I'm looking forward to the moderators getting up that learning curve because this is frustrating.

I disagree with you wide inside. Parties like the lib dems and greens may not win at general elections but they are still useful as pressure groups. I was considering voting green myself in the upcoming election.

I voted labour, they got in and they didn't do the things they said they would do in order to get people like me to vote for them. Your vote certainly is not worth a light if the party you vote for doesn't do what they said they would do just trying to get people to vote for them. I wish there was some way to tell what their true intentions were before I wasted my vote. "Democracy" is a funny system if this system we have is an example of it.

I'm not the only one who has this perverse and self-defeating fascination with comments that have been removed, am I? I just want to know what people said /so much more/ when there's a 'this post has been removed' thang...

I agree to a point, but it's still important to get the right party in. You can either have a party that says a lot of things that you agree with and only fulfills some of them, or one that says a lot of things that you dissagree with, and only fulfills some of them.
I know which I choose.

wide

*Prods Wide with a wizened finger (but in a playful sort of way just in case a moderator is looking)*

That wouldn't be the "Monster Raving Loony Party" by any chance?

I'll miss Screaming Lord Such this time around... *Wistful sigh*