. General Discussion Board About Them Thar Animules...
Posted By: Redster <macisme@primenet.com> (216.103.35.107)
Date: Wednesday, 19 April 2000, at 9:19 p.m.Jensen said:
"I am curious...do you wear leather? It has been my experience that the people who scream the loudest about animal rights are rather hypocritical... I mean you...said you eat 'chicken, turkey, and fish.' Do those animals not deserve to have your ideals about animal rights applied to them as well? "
As a part of the animal rights movement, and a vegetarian for over 15 years, I have to agree with Jensen: Many times, people who put forth "don't eat meat," define 'meat' as simply RED meat. Just because fish & fowl are lower on the evolutionary scale doesn't mean they aren't living, feeling creatures. Remember that what we call 'meat' now was referred to as 'flesh' prior to the 1900s [a much more apt description], and if we want to get Biblical... 'meat' did NOT refer simply to animal flesh, but was the terminology used for 'food.' ALL food was considered 'meat.'
I don't wear leather. The idea of bashing a bunny (poor Thumper) or whatever to "fur" myself is abhorrent to me. I don't buy any sort of furniture, etc. that is leather or lambskin or whatever; I buy "cruelty free" cleaning and make-up products... I could go on and on...
The point is... if one is going to follow the path we call "animal rights" one must own up to the responsibility of the decision. It is not mouthing a flippant, "Oh... poor, pretty dolphins... They get caught in the tuna nets," and then going off for a lunch of tuna fish sandwiches. What about the danged TUNA?!?
As for animal testing? ...
My father, who passed away from the effects of a rare heart disease at the age of 46, after 10 years of dying piece by piece, had given permission to be used as a human "guinea pig" by the (then) top heart specialists of the world (including one of the doctors who TRAINED Dr. DeBakey). Twenty-seven people in the WORLD had this condition at the time, and precious little was known about it. At one point, five years before his death, he had been given an experimental drug that had proved "successful" in treating similar ailments in various animals. This lovely drug caused a rampant fungus to grow in his mouth, and the combination of the drug and what they gave him to combat the fungus put him into cardiac arrest and almost killed him five years prematurely. All of the doctors on my father's case then said that all the animal testing was virtually WORTHLESS!!! the only way they could ascertain any valid, usable information was to experiment on humans, who, like my father, because of the "last hope" aspect were willing to be the ones to give a try [in present time, think AIDS victims... they're rushing to try new protocols]. Why? The various endocrine and nervous systems are so dissimilar to the human systems, it's laughable. Remember... one of my father's doctors was the man who trained Dr. DeBakey you know... the developer of the heart-lung machine that made open heart surgery possible, and a pioneer in the development of the artificial heart? Yeah... THAT DeBakey. His contemporaries, while STILL utilizing the conventional animal experimentation methods (because the AMA & FDA demanded [and still do] animal testing for products and drugs), acknowledged that these tests were virtually worthless, and concurred that the only effective way to really treat HUMAN illnesses was to utilize HUMAN subjects.
A few more things:
(1) Depo Provera, the drug that had been "successfully" tested on apes, when given to pregnant women, cause massive birth defects in their babies most prominently, holes in the spine (Spina Bifida). A lot of good THAT animal testing did anyone.
(2) Parsley kills parrots. It is harmless even beneficial to humans.
(3) Butter kills rats. Other than the potential for clogged arteries because of overuse, it is harmless to humans.
(4) A hedgehog can ingest enough potassium cyanide to kill 15,000 human beings and look for more.
(5) The massive waste in raising cows for food is astronomical both from an ecological standpoint and sheer dollars spent per pound of food.
(6) The environmental impact of pig farming is more than just the aspect of waste: toxins are leeching into the soil and well water in areas near pig farms.
(7) The human digestive system is set up entirely wrong for a carnivore. Our natural diet, as is the case with ANY species, is what we can eat in its natural state, without needing any processing: in the human's case fruits, vegetables, nuts, etc. Funny, too... We're the only mammal who will drink milk from sources other than its mother, and the only mammal who continues to drink milk AFTER we've been weaned. Does the fact, then, that a large portion of our society suffers from varying degrees of adverse reactions to milk products (lactose intolerance) surprise anyone? DAMN! And ice cream tastes SOOOOOOO good!!!
One last thing, and I'll get off my soap box...
If animal experimentation were held in check, and focused specifically on various treatments for diseases, etc., while I would still have a problem with it, I could understand someone else vigorously defending it; HOWEVER... here are examples of some actual experiments, funded primarily with YOUR tax dollars:
(1) 10,000 dogs of various breeds, sizes and sex were scalded to death in hot water of different temperatures just to see how long it would take each of them to die.
(2) 50,000 rabbits had their heads immobilized, then had hair spray sprayed into their eyes just to see how long it took them to go blind. Oh yeah... and after that they were either put into other, more horrifying experiments or just killed. Fifty THOUSAND! Common sense says that it's not a good thing to spray that crap in your eyes!
(3) Thousands of animals who are undergoing testing have their vocal chords severed so they cannot cry out in pain. Oh yeah... and those same animals are rarely receive any form of anesthesia.
I'd have to agree with Dr. Albert Schweitzer, who said:
(1) If I am to expect others to respect my life, then I must respect the other life I see, however strange it may be to mine. And not only other human life, but all kinds of life: life above mine, if there be such life; life below mine, as I know it to exist. Ethics in our Western world has hitherto been largely limited to the relations of man to man. But that is a limited ethics. We need a boundless ethics which will include the animals also.
(2) Whenever an animal is somehow forced into the service of men, every one of us must be concerned for any suffering it bears on that account. No one of us may permit any preventable pain to be inflicted, even though the responsibility for that pain is not ours. No one may appease his conscience by thinking that he would be interfering in something that does not concern him. No one may shut his eyes and think the pain, which is therefore not visible to him, is non-existent.
That's about it... Thanks for makin' it to the end of this missive!
Redster
( )M( )