Conscience vote: animal rights and anthropomorphism versus human rights

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This is always going to be big.

This is an issue that is always going to create tension: how far do we anthropomorphise versus how much do we respect the rights of living humans (of which we are a part).

A very dear, very sentient, very qualified and very loving human being, someone I am very proud and honoured to call a friend, has pointed out to me, waaaaaay out here in the Antipodes, that a very real and explosive situation is happening in Britain at the moment.

Not explosive as is 9/11. “Explosive” as in human rights to life and health versus animal rights to life and health.

As the Guardian (UK) newspaper says,

“In 2001 Britain’s largest animal testing centre, Huntingdon Life Sciences, nearly closed down after violent protests prompted investors to pull out. If Saturday’s counter-rally marks a turning of the tide then it will be good not only for medical research that can save millions of lives (including those of protesters) but also for the cause of democratic protest.”

I may make myself immensely unpopular with those who believe that Mickey Mouse is real, but I agree with the Professor of Physiology, John Stein, at no less an institution than Oxford University (that I applied to enter but apparently that year was not clever enough to enter into their Psychology stream as a mature student; but then judging by this recent quiz perhaps they were right), who said:

“No one believes that testing animals in laboratories per se is a wonderful thing and protesters unquestionably have a right to make their point of view known. What they do not have the right to do is to use illegal and violent means — including, in extreme cases, death threats — to force their minority view on everyone else. Without such tests millions of people now able to live normal lives would be dead. John Stein, professor of physiology at Oxford put it succinctly when he told the Pro-Test demonstrators: “Imagine yourself with a drowsy, whimpering three-year-old with meningitis. Fifty years ago, that child would have died. Now, due to the discovery and isolation of penicillin in this university, we can stop that child dying.”

Okay, I will allow him to forget to mention that it was the work of my fellow South Australian, Sir Howard Florey, that paved the way at Oxford for that research to happen. We allow such hubris and ego within the scientific community — after all, it is “publish or lose your post” — but the sentiment and accuracy remains.

Sky News has an online poll “Do we need animal testing?” It closes on Sunday 5 March. We assume that the antivivisectionists have already been busy on their networks, because voting currently stands at around 27,000 with 70% answering “no”.

Your voice is a conscience vote.

My view?

I don’t doubt for a moment that animals feel pain — I have two very-much-loved dogs by my side as I type: a 14-year old blind and deaf Jack Russell called ‘Sophie’ and a two year old pedigree Labrador by the name of ‘Boof’ who I adore and I would want to follow me into Heaven.

But given a choice between them, who I adore and who share with my wife and me our bedroom for snoring duties, and my children, I know that I would sacrifice them for my children.

But that is not what medical science asks — for me to make that choice.

Medical science asks me to make a choice for human life versus animals who would otherwise die.

As the Guardian puts it,

“More than 80% of experiments these days are conducted on rodents which, in other circumstances, might well be culled for public health reasons. The law is already pretty strict, allowing testing only when there is no alternative but more needs to be done to explore alternatives such as computer modelling and cell culture - or simply to disseminate more widely the fruits of research already being done elsewhere in the world. In this way unnecessary duplication could be avoided.

If the anti-vivisection protesters restricted their campaign to minimising the number of unnecessary experiments and putting constant pressure on scientists to find more humane alternatives, they would gain much more public support. But they do not. They are so obsessed with the rights of animals that they would close down experiments that would inevitably lead to a situation in which more humans would needlessly die. It is vitally important that Saturday’s resurgence of popular opinion - which seems bound to trigger increased opposition from activists - does not wither on the bough through lack of wider support”.

As much as I respect and admire the late Douglas Adams (and I have all his books), I don’t believe that mice were running a massive scientific experiment to determine the answer to ‘Life, the Universe, and everything.’

Therefore I am for vivisection where it is scientifically justified. I know too many humane, loving, caring scientists to fall for the ’scientists hate all animal life and treat them poorly’ garbage. If I could share with you stories about my friend and a cat we both knew called ‘Jolly’ (short for Al Jolson, because he was black on the outside but white underneath) then you would know that all scientists who deal with animals are definitely NOT Nazis. But there are some who would paint him thus.

If you have a view, then vote. You have a few hours left.

If you are of a Christian/Jewish/Muslim bent, the perhaps you will remember that in Genesis God made Man (and Woman) to rule over the animal kingdom, not to be subservient to it to it

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” (Genesis 1:26 NIV)

Controversial, but hey, why not be?!

Technorati: Animal rights, human rights, Genesis