Somebody earlier posted that we were `higher beings` and therefore entitled to use` lower beings` for our children. It is exactly this primitive mindset that vivisectionists thrive on to torture and maim those animals who cannot defend themselves. By the way there is no such thing as humane vivisection.

Owing one’s life, or extension of life, to animal testing certainly lends a different perspective. Which makes me wonder if any of these fine folks shipping razor blades and threats through the mail would decisively refuse treatment for a life-threatening illness were it developed through animal experimentation.

I’m a student of Biology so I recognize the vast importance of animal testing.
But I also come from the far left of the political spectrum, so I know emotions about animal testing run deep. It’s hard to find a median. The best we can do now is have civility on both sides. Scientists and activists have much in common, and we’d make better allies than enemies.

As of now, animal testing is necessary for human advancement. But I’ll be the first to accept a better model when we think of one.

Harming sentient beings–animal OR human–is wrong. Humans and non-humans both feel pain and we shouldn’t inflict harm on them intentionally. I am so tired of hearing about cruel and hypocritical AR activists. They are coming from a place of irrational emotions, but instead of helping, they are actually harming the cause.

I want to help animals and people. We can save a lot of lives by providing clean water to 3rd world nations and also by providing medical care to everyone in our nation. We could save even more lives by teaching healthy habits to our youth.

I realize that many medical advances have come from animal testing. But nowadays, I believe we should strive for alternatives while making the animals used rarer and rarer [and also by making their existances less miserable while they are in labs].

As progress continues, I believe testing on animals will become a thing of the past. Harming people is not the way to get there.

I think most everyone agrees on these simple points; perhaps we should come together, provide medical care and clean water to people, fund the search for animal testing alternatives, and move toward the day that animal research is obsolete.

Ever had a sick family member or friend?

I realize this subject is probably upsetting for you and part of your reaction is coming from that emotional standpoint and more is probably coming from your worldview that we need to live in better balance with nature – which I can appreciate to a degree, as a species we’ve pushed against nature too hard and we need to better respect that.

We aren’t talking about good & evil here though, nor are we talking about torture. Torture is the willing infliction of pain & suffering for the sake of doing so. Casting animal researchers as deranged tortures of animals is a wild distortion of the truth. Great care is taken to minimize animal suffering and death as well as to use as few animals as possible.

No one delights in these things, researchers are real people too – no matter how much animal rights groups might want to dehumanize them.

I wonder if you might take the time to go into a cancer ward, and tell the children there that their lives are futile, worthless and that they need to die so we can live in harmony with our animal brothers. That the people working to save their lives are evil and that they don’t deserve to make it.

Of course, some of these kids won’t really grasp the larger scope of your argument, so you might want to take it up with their parents.

You see, it’s not just my futile existence or yours that stands to benefit from the advances of medicine, largely due to animal research, but the needless lives of our children as well.

I guess you could always take a stand and refuse any future medical attention for any condition that befalls you in the future. You could be a martyr to the cause, leading us by noble example…and that is your right and your choice, however, that’s where your rights end.

Because to not explore the avenues presented to us by responsible animal research is to condemn those who suffer now and in the future to horrible deaths and preventable suffering.

*That* is evil. *That* is torture.

Hey, if you’re allowed to make bold statements out of emotion, then why not me?

Which says everything about the evil of the research. Animal torture is never justified.

“No one likes needless animal testing but some is absolutely necessary.”

So we can extend our futile existence with a few extra years ? Perhaps a shorter life in harmony with our animal brothers has more value than an extended one made possible through the endless torture of countless creatures who feel every bit as much pain and misery as us when we are sick.