Animal rights: how we treat animals reflects who we are

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From a purely biological perspective, no creature inherently has rights beyond what it has the power to impose. What is capable of surviving does, what cannot does not. But our world is not just biology. It is also ethical. “Power does the right thing” cannot be the operational paradigm in a world where freedom, compassion, humanity and love are desired. Nor are we excluded from consideration of the rights of other creatures just because we are paying someone else to create drugs, perfume a deodorant, or add to our food.

Humans with the ability to use their technology to affect and control the world so broadly and deeply are constantly faced with ethical choices. Modern life is not a matter of mere survival as it was when we were in nature. It is an opportunity to develop and grow as introspective, sensitive and ethical people. For example, walking through the woods does not require rules, but driving in traffic does. Drinking from a stream is not a problem, but damming the stream and flooding thousands of acres is. Breaking through the undergrowth with our hands to make a shelter for shelter is one thing, but stripping the planet with machines is quite another. Hunting animals in the wild for food using only ingenuity, strength and speed is a totally different matter than wiping out entire populations with rifles (for “sport”) or our urban invasion. Animals need to be raised to feed a growing population, but denying them any decent or natural way of life, or subjecting them to abuse or cruelty, is not a right we can claim.

Living in nature would present few ethical options. Causes and philosophy have a way of taking a backseat when life is consumed with day-to-day survival. But an advanced society with almost unlimited technological capabilities is another matter. Our ability now to cage and control virtually every creature on the planet and virtually destroy the environment that sustains life on Earth on a terrestrial scale requires choices and ethical responsibility.

Apparently the first choice to be made is whether or not we want to survive here in the long term. Assuming the answer is yes, we must assume fiduciary responsibility for the planet and its web of life. But it does not end there, as some human and green movements would seem to argue. To survive we must also take the life of the plant and animal foods that we consume. That is a reality that we are faced with, and assuming we wish to survive, it is not a question of ethics. On the other hand, our handling and behavior towards other living beings, including our food, present moral options. It also creates a mood, so to speak, setting the tone for how we treat each other. If it is easy for us to treat life insensibly, it is a small step to treat each other in the same way. If we extend caring, compassion, and decency to the rest of the world, we are much more likely to treat other human beings similarly.

Killing animals or plants for fun or simply because we have the power to do so is neither rational nor ethical. It is a form of psychopathic behavior that threatens the web of life on which we depend and desensitizes us to the value of all life.

People who rejoice in the pain, suffering, and death of other creatures, or who justify it for the money that can be earned, threaten civilization itself. It is not a great leap for those who behave in this way to spread a human-like insensitivity. Would we rather live next door to someone who creates a habitat for wild creatures in their garden and captures live house mice to release them outdoors, or someone who steps on whatever insects they see, chains their dog to a stake in the garden, yahoos ? about shooting songbirds from your window with a pellet gun and hunting trophies leaving the corpses to rot? It is no coincidence that serial killers often have a history of torturing and killing animals (1).

Creatures raised for food should not be treated as mere production units, confined to never see the light of day, and then inhumanely manipulated and euthanized. They should be raised kindly in a free and open environment where they can enjoy the life they have. Arguably, hunting should be reserved for the sole purpose of obtaining food, not for the pleasure of killing. If there is an opportunity to show compassion, why not seize it rather than abuse and exploit just because we have the power to do so?

Scientists and much of the public justify animal testing as necessary to find cures for diseases, test toxins, test mascara safety, etc. I remember an experience in a toxicology class. The lesson of the day was to show how topical products can be evaluated for safety. For a demonstration, the teacher held a rabbit for its nap and put a few drops of a chemical in the rabbit’s eye. The rabbit screeched and struggled in pain. It was a miserable thing to see. As the days passed, we were shown the progression of the caustic chemical in the rabbit’s cornea. The extreme ulceration that resulted was grotesque and the pain the rabbit was enduring was heartbreaking. To this day I vividly remember and regret paying the tuition for this unnecessary cruelty, although showing any reaction at the time ran the risk of being viewed as unscientific and emotional, a definite no-no in medical schools.

The lesson learned from this pathetic display of human callousness was that harmful chemicals will ulcerate and dissolve the eyes. How deep. There wasn’t a student in the class who couldn’t have guessed the outcome before the macabre demonstration took place. The real conclusion was that life could be treated with indifference. If we wanted to be good doctors, we had to put up with it, put aside silly compassion, and bravely mutilate life for the greater good of medicine.

Torture aside, such experimentation is an unnecessary and truly shamefully neglected science. Those who participate in it become insensitive to suffering, lose compassion, and learn to perfect the skill of obtuse justification. Medical experimentation on animals is unnecessary because each species reacts differently to toxins, drugs, and even surgery. In fact, each individual is biochemically different. What might be true for a goose is not for a glance. Therefore, a scientific result of a laboratory in which thousands of mice, dogs or monkeys are tortured does not give certainty about an effect in humans or other species. Biological differences skew all results (2).

Aspirin causes birth defects in rats but not in humans. Humans and guinea pigs need vitamin C in their diet, but most other creatures make it themselves. A dose of opium that will kill a human is harmless in dogs and chicks. Allylisothiocyanate will cause cancer in the male rat, but may not in the female or mice. Penicillin will kill a guinea pig but potentially save a person’s life. Most drugs, nutrients, and toxins have a reverse effect: a benefit on one level is a danger on another. Measuring such things is almost impossible (3). Even kindness in the lab can alter results, as evidenced by atherosclerosis (the heart attack factor) which is reduced by up to 60% in handled rabbits, compared to ignored (4).

The point is that no one knows all the variables when conducting such an investigation. They can only control a few, guess all the others, and then extrapolate, a huge leap of faith timed precisely to occur before the budget runs out. This is why the drugs go through years of FDA testing at a cost of 360 million dollars, and then can kill and maim when introduced into the population.

Yet such ruthless experimentation proceeds in the name of science and the promise of cures. Dommage C’est. Using a bit of logic or other laboratory tools, such as tissue culture techniques, could also have led to the same conclusions obtained from animal testing. For example, the researchers used 24,000 mice to show that 2-acetylaminofluorene was carcinogenic. Based on the logic of the genetic context, you or I could have told you the result without caging or torturing a mouse. Why wouldn’t a synthetic chemical like this be harmful?

The most frustrating thing is that the result of all animal experimentation is not cures. Rather, there are hundreds of thousands of mutilated and murdered humans who bought the flawed science of such ‘proven’ drugs. Animal research brings us drugs with side effects, dependencies, prescription errors, cross-reactions, and elimination of symptoms while the cause of the disease continues. Animal testing is a bad idea at first and a tragic disaster in practice.

The popular idea is that our environment, including all its creatures, is a mere resource for our exploitation. That is irrational if long-term human well-being is important and denies that humans have a higher purpose than it justifies.

(1) Relationship between animal abuse and human violence. Oxford Center for Animal Ethics, 2007. Retrieved from World Wide Web: http://www.oxfordanimalethics.com.

(2) Gawrylewski, Andrea, ‘The problem with animal models: trial and error’, The Scientist 21-7 (2007), 45-51.

(3) Qureshi, B. The reverse effect. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 83 (1990), 131-132.

(4) Rowland, D. The nutritional bypass: reverse atherosclerosis without surgery. Parry Sound: Rowland Publications, 1995.

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