AR Primer

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Animal Testing Why does it raise ethical issues?
Cats, dogs, nonhuman primates and other animals
are drowned, suffocated, and starved to
death. They are burned and subjected to
radiation. Their eyes are removed, their hearing
is destroyed. They have limbs severed and organs
crushed. Invasive means are used to give them
heart attacks, cancers, and seizures. They are
deprived of sleep, subjected to electric shock,
and exposed to extremes of heat and cold
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and thats on a good day, when the testing labs
are following the guidelines. All the procedures
on the previous slide comply fully with the
Animal Welfare Act. Each procedure conforms with
what Animal Plant Health Inspection Service
inspectors count as humane care and treatment.
And testing labs have done much crueler things,
unnecessarily. The following slides show
examples (no graphic photos) of fully approved
tests
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Fully approved E. Sander Connollys(Columbia
Univ.) experiments

• Strokes were (are?) induced in baboons by
  removing their left eyeballs to reach and clamp a
  critical blood vessel to their brains.
• Metal pipes were (are?) surgically implanted
  in monkeys skulls for the purpose of inducing
  stress in order to study the connection between
  stress and menstrual cycles.
• Nicotine was (is?) pumped into pregnant
  baboons who are strapped into backpacks full of
  instrumentation and tethered inside cages.
• More info at http//www.columbiacruelty.com

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Experiments Funded by March of Dimes

• The March of Dimes has funded experimenters who
  have sewn cats eyes shut, implanted wires into
  the uteruses of pregnant monkeys, cut open the
  skulls of ferrets and injected chemicals directly
  into their brains, and administered cocaine,
  nicotine, and alcohol to pregnant rats even
  though the harmful effects of these substances on
  developing fetuses is well known.
• Info Humane Charity Seal of Approval
• http//www.MarchofCrimes.org

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Harry Harlow, Primate Research

• Experiments on a monkeys instinct to cling to
  its mother even when the mother subjects it to
  rejection and pain. (Research conducted by Harry
  Harlow at the Primate Research Centre at Madison,
  Wisconsin, see Singer 1995, 33-35)

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More examples

• Removing monkeys eyes to discover whether their
  facial expressions resembled that of sighted
  monkeys when deprived of their mothers. They did.
  (See Gendin 1986, 200)
• Testing the pressure on a hose when monkeys bit
  it in response to electric shocks on their tails
  compared to the biting pressure resulting from
  amphetamines, etc. (See Gendin 1986, 2001)

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Dont we need to experiment on animals because of
the benefit?

• So therefore it is morally justified.
• This response assumes that animals dont have
  moral rights.
• Also, it makes the scientific assumption that
  there are great medical benefits from animal
  research.
• AND, it assumes theres NOTHING BETTER than can
  be done for humans than animal research.

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What about pain and suffering-free research?

• If an animal is killed, thats still a harm--
  something bad has happened to the animal. They
  miss out on all they would have experienced
  their lives are cut short.
• We dont think that if someone killed us
  painlessly, that would make it morally ok.
• The response, Well, treating these animals in
  these ways would be OK if done humanely and
  with every effort to minimize pain needs
  serious defense.

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Whats wrong with testing cosmetics on animals?

• Companies dont put lipstick and rouge on a pig,
  take it to a bar, and see if anybody picks it up.

A "researcher" pries open the eye of a young
rabbit (as it squirms to break free) and pours in
a vial of drain cleaner.
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Is it okay to use a medicine that has been tested
on animals?

• Take the generic version of the drug--this won't
  put money into the pockets of the company that
  tested it on animals. Just as driving on roads
  that were built by slaves doesn't mean that one
  supports slavery, using medicines that were
  tested on animals doesn't mean one supports
  animal testing. If there is no generic version
  of a drug that was tested on animals, but taking
  the drug makes a person better able to help
  animals today, that person should do so for the
  sake of animals. There is no one-to-one
  correlation between consumer drug purchases and
  animal misery (as there is with the correlation
  of food consumption, leather, etc.). Ironically,
  in some cases it helps animals to support the
  companies testing on them (but we dont recommend
  this). One company, when doing financially well,
  invested money in alternative testing and cut the
  number of animal tests. Protesting, and law
  changes, will make companies change their
  policies. Boycotting products may be only
  symbolic.

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If animal exploitation were wrong, it would be
illegal
Legality is no guarantee of morality. Who gets
legal rights is determined by the opinion of
todays legislators. The law changes as public
opinion or political motivations change, but
ethics are not so arbitrary. Look at some of the
other things that have at one time been legal in
the U.S.child labor, human slavery, the
oppression of women.
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In the US, it used to be

• Illegal to possess a bathtub in Massachusetts.
• Legal for parents to have their children hung for
  disobedience.
• Legal to kill someone if others thought them to
  be a witch.
• If youd guess that laws are more logical now,
  then please smile at the following 2 slides (a
  small sampling of the dumb laws still on the
  books) and take laws with several grains of salt.

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Laws which still exist in the US

• In Arkansas, a man is permitted to beat his wife,
  but no more than once a month.
• In Montana, seven or more native Americans
  together are considered a raiding or war party,
  and it is legal to shoot them.
• In Vermont, it is illegal to deny the existence
  of God.
• In Alabama, it is illegal to wear a fake
  moustache that causes laughter in church.
  You may not have an ice cream cone in your back
  pocket at any time. Children of incestuous
  couples are deemed legitimate.
• In Arizona, when being attacked by a criminal or
  burglar, you may only protect yourself with the
  same weapon that the other person possesses.
  Any misdemeanor committed while wearing a red
  mask is considered a felony. In Tombstone
  It is illegal for men and women over the age of
  18 to have less than one missing tooth visible
  when smiling.

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Laws which still exist in the US

• California. In Chico Detonating a nuclear device
  within the city limits results in a 500 fine.
  In San Francisco Persons classified as
  "ugly" may not walk down any street. In Indian
  Wells It is illegal for a trumpet player to play
  his instrument with the intention of luring
  someone to a store.
• Colorado. In Denver It is unlawful to lend your
  vacuum cleaner to your next-door neighbor
• Florida A law prohibits unmarried women from
  parachuting on Sunday. Men may not be seen
  publicly in any kind of strapless gown.
• Illinois In Normal, it is against the law to
  make faces at dogs.
• Iowa One-armed piano players must perform for
  free.
• In Fort Madison The fire department is
  required to practice fire fighting for fifteen
  minutes before attending a fire.

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Isn't breaking the law (e.g., destruction of
property) wrong?
Those who object to law-breaking under all
circumstances would have to condemn The
Tiananmen Square demonstrators. The Boston Tea
Party participants. Mahatma Gandhi and his
followers. World War II resistance fighters.
The Polish Solidarity Movement. Vietnam War
draft card burners.The list could be continued
almost indefinitely. "Certainly one of the
highest duties of the citizen is a scrupulous
obedience to the laws of the nation. But it is
not the highest duty." --Thomas Jefferson (3rd
U.S. President)
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Isn't breaking the law wrong?
From Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?
Opponents of direct action often argue that
illegal actions undermine the rule of law, and
they view civil disobedience as a threat to
political order. Among other things, this
perspective presupposes that the system in
question is legitimate or cannot be improved. It
misrepresents direct activists as people who lack
respect for the principles of law, when arguably
they have a higher regard for the spirit of law
and its relation to ethics and justice than
whose who fetishize political order for its own
sake. Moreover, this argument fails to grasp that
many direct action advocates are anarchists who
seek to replace the states and legal systems
they hold in contempt with the ethical substance
of self-regulating decentralized communities.
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Isn't ALF supposed to be non-violent?
From Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?
Broadening the term "violence" to include store
windows, buildings, laboratory equipment, and
assorted physical objects can easily trivialize
the violence done to human and nonhuman animals
and may blur the critical distinction between
living beings and nonliving things. There is a
huge difference between breaking the neck of a
mink and smashing a fur store window, but the
values of society are revealed all too clearly
when only the latter action is condemned as a
crime worthy of intense opprobrium and legal
action.
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Isn't sabotage violence?
From Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? If
sabotage is violence, it pales in comparison to
what industries inflict on animals in the
speciesist Gulags, factories, and killing
fields/seas of industrial capitalism. Animal
liberationists rightly underscore the ironic
disparity between the outcry over home
demonstrations, liberations, and property damage
and the silence over the obscene violence
inherent in the torture and killing of billions
of animals every year for food, fashion, sport,
entertainment, and science. Let moral outrage be
put in proper perspective.
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Whos violent?
From Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?
Proponents of the "sabotage is violence"
argument seem to assert that there is violence
(1) in the action itself and (2) in its effect on
human targets. In the act of property
destruction, objects are defaced, smashed,
burned, and demolished. If this is violence, then
one certainly ought to open up the definition of
violence and terrorism to include corporate
destruction of oceans, rivers, marshes,
mountains, forests, and ecosystems of all
kinds. Those who cry "eco-terrorist" the
loudest are typically those who profit the most
from violence and killing, and those who seek to
disguise their own crimes against life by
vilifying others.
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Tom Regan on Violence
Here are the main outlines of a possible
justification of violence (against property) 1.
Animals are innocent. 2. Violence is used only
when it is necessary to rescue them so that they
are spared terrible harms. 3. Excessive violence
is never used. 4. Violence is used only after
nonviolent alternatives have been exhausted, as
time and circumstances permit. 5. Therefore, in
these cases, the use of violence is justified.
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Doesn't extreme activism give the AR movement a
bad name?
Extreme action is a political tactic that
dramatizes issues and places them before the
public when they otherwise would be ignored in
the media, applies pressure to corporations and
government agencies that otherwise are able to
resist "legitimate" pressure from law-abiding
organizations, and broadens the spectrum of
activism so that lobbying by mainstream groups is
not considered "extremist". Furthermore, in the
long run, people may agree with the message even
while hating the messenger. Example The
demonstrators who threw bricks at building in
protest of the Vietnam War were hated. But they
made news, and their message hit home.
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Do ALF raids give the AR movement a bad name?
ALF "raids" have given us proof of horrific
cruelty that would not have been discovered or
believed otherwise. They have resulted in
official filing of criminal charges against
laboratories, citing of experimenters for
violations of the Animal Welfare Act, and, in
some cases, shutting down of abusive labs for
good. Often ALF raids have been followed by
widespread scientific condemnation of the
practices occurring in the targeted labs.
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Do ALF raids give the AR movement a bad name?
ALF raids may give the ALF a bad name, but the
movement is not ALF, or vice versa. Some believe
that ALF acts as the "bad cop" to the "good cop'
of other AR advocates. Dr. Martin Luther King and
Malcolm X created the same dynamic in the civil
rights movement. Malcolm X preached change
powered by violent confrontation. Malcolm X
adamantly spoke out against the white people,
calling them white devils. Did this hinder the
movement or strengthen it? On one hand, the
appeal of Malcolm X and King to separate groups
made for a larger following in shear numbers
increasing awareness more effectively than just
one group could. Those two, using their
unintended good cop-bad cop strategy ended up
appealing to more people.
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