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

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/4553507.stm

While it is recognised that animals have feelings is it even remotely right to desecrate a grave and cause massive distress to a family for the sake of a few rodents?

Well I have mixed emotions.

on the one hand a body is just a body IMHO, once you are dead there is not much to it.

Whilst on the other hand I have nothing but contempt for the people doing this kind of thing. I wonder if these people would refuse a life saving medicine that had been tested on animals?

I doubt it, if they were particularly brave for the cause they would have given themselves up over this and tried to make matrys out of themselves. The attitude displayed convinces me they are a bunch of cowards.

Aside of everything else, how dare "they" try to force someone to give up their livlihood for a cause they don't believe in?

It's making me really angry. I don't believe in unneccessary testing on animals, but I wouldn't turn down life saving medicine - particularly for the Gruesome Twosome - just because a few dozen rats had to be tested on.

(and is it true about how penicillin kills guinea pigs? and that if it had been tested on them it wouldn't have got through the first stages of testing?)

There is no logic applied by these people - they are prepared to kill people, because of their supposed connection to animal testing.

I thought that case was dreadful, but hoped that the peole involved were a small group of nutcases. I think this case is much worse:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1484312,00.html

--"'I was bayed at,' said Robins, a retired naval engineer from Southampton. 'Several hundred people were shouting. Some called out "Nazi!", "bastard!" and "Why don't you roll over and die!" I tried to speak, but was shouted down. It was utterly terrifying.'"

What did he do to deserve this? He tried to show that the treatment of his Parkinson's disease had made a huge improvement. Since the treatment was developed using animal experimentation, most of the audience at the public meeting didn't want to hear it.



Azara

I don't see how the extreme protesters actually do much good for the general cause, since they just sem to come across as thugs of questionable reason or even sanity.

I'd almost be tempted to wonder if some of them are atracted more by the ability to feel morally superior than by the hope they will actually change anything.

No doubt like the situation with regular terrorism running alongside lawful protest or politics, if any aims are achieved, the people who have been the most violent will want to claim all the credit, even if their actions have actually made changes harder to achieve.

Indeed, at the Staffordshire farm, the attacks on, and intimitadion of people even vaguely associated with the farm have effectively killed off the regular farming side of the business, forcing the farm owners to concentrate exclusively on rearing experimental animals.

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Assuming there is *some* logic behind the extreme animal rights lot, I don't really know at what point they consider animals as relatively disposable. Reptiles? Fish? Insects?

Personally, I'd quite happily drive a steamroller over a football-field of rodents if it was the fastest way to save a human from serious suffering.
If I *really* didn't like the particular human, I may be less keen, but I'd find it hard to criticise someone who felt differently who chose to drive the steamroller.

There are some philosophically interesting ethical questions in the animal-experimentation area, but I'm not sure how many of the extreme contingent would be able to usefully contribute to any real debate on them.

As long as it's being done in the name of geniune science (i.e. not cosmetics) I am pro-animal testing. There'd be a much bigger outcry if these things were tested on humans (which I have heard being suggested as an alternative).

I'm not even against the fur trade, assuming that the animals are being farmed specifically for the purpose rather than being caught in the wild... mankind has been wearing furs for millions of years, why should it stop just because somebody decided a cute little animal who was being bred for the purpose deserves to be free?

I remember hearing about the mink farm 'Oop North' which was broken into and all the mink freed... they then devastated the local wildlife. Is that logic? I don't think so.

How do the Animal Rights mob explain why they are prepared to do to human beings what they protest about being done to animals?

I can see some logic in the basic argument - exhaustively covered on an old POV board, but the antics of the extremists destroys any sympathy with the aims.

The publishing of names and addresses of Huntingdon Life Science's staff and the targetting of their contractors shows just how low these people can get. And the shouting of abuse at the parkinson sufferer demonstrates that they are as bad as street thugs

They are worse than the animals themselves.

Novo

Perhaps the Animal Rights folk should be asked to volounteer for testing for medical purposes in place of their furry friends.

Maybe that should be the punishment if they are ever found guilty of a criminal offence against humans?

Novo

Brilliant idea Novo

Lets set up a company that provides this service to the Courts and Probation Service!

turvy