Animal Rights

[!ightoftruth]

i have just read this article in the bbc

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4753333.st m

I personally think that anyone with any link to huntingdon life sciences or any company which tests on animals is no better than anyone who profited from the holocaust because animal iis just as sick and pointless as the holocaust.

[edited by AB]

[BigDogsWang]

I think that was Bush / Blair's idea for Saddam Hussein. Look where it got them!

I understand your moral point of view LoT, but if you were to prevent the killing of animals by murdering those who killed them, it's goodbye Abbatoir worker, Farmers, Vets, Third World hunters, the list is endless.

[Drusilla1S]

!ightoftruth, your statement is based on a personal judgement of what is the greater evil and who gets to decide on 'the greater evil'- you??

I'm not intending to be dismissive, but can you see how some would suggest that is exactly the argument the terrorists in 9/11 used?
'We are helping the oppressed of the Moslem world! We are right! The Americans are the greater evil and must therefore, die.'

Such an argument could be used by any group. Some might even argue the greater good would be served by killing all animal rights protesters, thus enabling more research on animals and thereby saving more children's lives.

I don't hold that view by the way and am not comfortable with animal research, but accept it as a necessary evil that should be closely monitored and removed whenever possible.

It was sensible campaigning that stopped the cosmetic industry using animals because the activists brought the wider community onboard. Acts or threats of terrorism merely isolate animal rights groups and turn public opinion away from a legitimate cause.

[!ightoftruth]

well actually this cant have been Bush/Blair idea because it would create a "wrong scenario" because the good of removing saddam would nor outweight the evil caused by getting rid of him.

Also the evil that would be if he would have been left in is lesss than the evil caused by the impending civil war.

My formula can get complicated but i find it works in the MAJORITY of scenario's

and yes i believe that in the perfect world we should live in harmony with animals and not eat them. This would also get rid of a fair few cancers as well because there is a big link between meaat and cancer. But that is for another thread. Were mainly discussing vivisection here.

[!ightoftruth]

Also in reply to a point made earlier by Dr Hunrgy that animal experiments do stop dangerous drugs. The absolute opposite occurs as well as the pysiological/genetic diffrences could mean that a drug proves to have no toxicity in a rat/dog/any other animal but causes increadible toxicity in humans.

This further supports my point that animal experiments have dangerously high uncertainty rates and that it would be a safer idea to toss a coin. As has been said
vivacia it is a great deal more sound to use the advancd non-animal techniques that we know have.

And to all of you asking me if i wuld have a problem taking a drug i ask you this question in return

Would you take yourslef or give to a member of your family a drug which had been tested on animals with a approximate relavency of 30% (to humans). Or a drug tested using techniques which have a relevancy of 90+%to humans?

[Lonnie]

My last post was short, as indeed this one will be, I stand by what I said, Loosehead has got it about right, and, to put matters int perspective, i'm Jewish, I wasn't offended by your comparison to the Holocaust, but you were totally wrong to make it, those people were not killed and tortured for the furtherence of medicine.

[jedda]

I would not personally harm an animal etc but human life is more important and animals get sick too and are helped by medicines.

[WaldoMcFroog]

"If the act produces more good than the evil produced in doing the act and the evil that would be caused by not doing it then it should be classed as a "morally correct thing""

And thus can you justify pretty much anything you please, including the holocaust, depending on your personal definitions of right or wrong.

You may be right, you may be wrong (I think you are wrong to support the methods used, but entirely sympathise with the desire to see an end to animal suffering) but as an ethical tool, your 'equation' is worse than useless.

[Pippa68]

I agree Waldo & Drusilla.I have tried so hard to stay out of this thread it has pained me!

I won't reapeat as they have said it for me.

All I can say is that right now I feel ashamed to be a vegetarian & may well get meself a bacon buttie

[WaldoMcFroog]

Why feel ashamed, Pippa? It's nothing to do with vegetarianism, or even whether vivisection is acceptable. It's about whether anti-vivisectionists behave in an acceptable manner and for most people's money they clearly don't.

[Pippa68]

I don't usually feel ashamed,Waldo.

I just get so irate because I get lumped in with anti-vivisectionists. And I am quite clearly not associated with terrorists or their supporters!

[BigDogsWang]

A large majority of Anti-vivisectionists can be likened to Muslim extremists in that they are protesting for what they truly believe in, but most can do so without the need for violence against fellow human beings. Unfortunately a handful of these extremists carry their believes too far, resulting in the maiming and killing of innocent people (and those associated with animal testing).
If the mainstream anti-viv's can completely disassociate themselves from the actions of some of those in their 'groups', I may start to pity and understand their cause. But so long as they are associated with an organisation known to firebomb houses, set booby traps under cars, attack Huntingdon Life Science staff with iron bars and dig up the corpses of old ladies, I�m afraid you won't find many sympathisers.
The same goes for all extremist groups.

[JudgeJ]

Well, lightoftruth, having read your post of 13:03 I�m afraid it�s back to the same old principle which concerns me. You think you have the right to do as you wish when, in your judgement, (and that�s the important bit) the benefit arising from what you do is greater than the evil that you judge will continue if you do nothing.

Fortunately for most of us, you are not blessed with such rights. This country has a process for making and amending laws. I know it may not be perfect, but if we all behaved as you think you are entitled to, the world would be a far more unpleasant place.

I�ll try not to get involved in this question again, but it is clear to me that you need some serious counselling. I hope you receive it before you have the opportunity to hurt somebody.

[johnlambert]

Just a thought !ightoftruth

Humans are animals (great apes) so by disclosing personal details ie names and addresses of shareholders other humans are going to target them and hurt them. Do you think that you are hypocritical by advocating one set of humans to harm other humans? What about their rights?

[!ightoftruth]

[edited by AB]

[oldhamfan]

Exclusive of the specific subject here:

It is your right to hold whatever opinions and views you hold.

It is wrong to try in any way, shape or form to try to force those views on others.

[Oneeyedvic]

[edited by AB]

[!ightoftruth]

[edited by AB]

[WaldoMcFroog]

Your analysis of Vic's position is completely and obviously flawed. You say that because he's a vivisectionalist, his murder victim can't make any scientific breakthroughs. This is transparently nonsensical. Scientific advances have unquestionanably arisen as a result of animal testing.

Stop the internal dialogue.

This is simply beyond debate; there are reams of documented scientific advances that have occured as a direct result of animal testing.

How about the vaccines for measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis and small pox? What about immunosupressants? etc etc etc

I realise you don't like it. I know you believe that other methods are better. That does nothing to alter how those advances were made. Scientific change can and does occur as a result of animal testing. Like I say, you may not like that fact, but that doesn't change *anything*.

Your ethical model fails because it allows you to stack the deck for as long as you wish, even using faulty evidence (see above rebuttal) to produce a bad guy of suffiecient magnitude that you may justify any course of action you please. It is therefore worthless.

[!ightoftruth]

WaldoMcFroog- the fact is that vivisection has its fingersin so many pies it is trying to claim responisibilty for every dicovery where animals were used at any stage.

They claim that diabetes was cured through animal experiments and only the animal experiments. Any semi-half wit knows that animal experiments had nothing to do with the insulin breakthorugh and wa sinfact to do with the human i repeat HUMAN (not dog or rat) genome project. And the cause of diabetes has been known since the time of Hippocrates.

The undenialbe fact is that animal experiments are a hinderance not a help to the past and future developments within medecine and any science.

[Vivacia]

Putting aside the debate of whether vivisectionists should be punished or not, i would be interested to know why the pro-testing people that have contributed to this thread are against using non-animal techniques for medical research i.e those i mentioned in one of my previous posts?

Also.. WaldoMcFroog - you claim the following;

'there are reams of documented scientific advances that have occured as a direct result of animal testing.
How about the vaccines for measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis and small pox? What about immunosupressants? etc '

Please explain how these scientific advances occured as a direct result of animal testing? (just because a successful drug was tested on animals does not mean it actually help develop it in anyway). and if you can explain this please then tell me if you think non-animal techniques could not have been used to test instead?