# Animal experimentation **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 10, 2003, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-experimentation/218184 "2003-12-10T19:05:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Aldebaran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Aldebaran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aldebaran)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2003, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-experimentation/218184/81 "2003-12-20T17:57:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lynn Bodoni \* > I think that random source animals are not a particularly good test group. I think they are if we are talking about rats, mouses, rabbits and other animals born in laboratories with the only goal to be used for testing, like their parents and their ancestry-upto-the-infinite were. > [@](#): > > I’m an insulin-dependent diabetic with heart & kidney failure and other health problems. I’m not HAPPY that animals died to provide information for my medical treatment, but I’m happy that the medical treatment is available to me. That is an understandable position seen your illness. Maybe there would be an other way to treat you if research in that direction would ever be done. We don’t know since there isn’t one. But I think the question here turns more around the strange idea some people seem to cherish: That animals have less right to live then humans…Sort of: humans are the Kings of the Globe and all the rest is their subject and slave. The root of this idea lies in my opinion in religions and the way certain doctrines are perceived. Salaam. A ---
**Author:** ![Aldebaran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Aldebaran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aldebaran)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2003, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-experimentation/218184/82 "2003-12-20T18:16:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by enigmatic \* > > About your remark on retesting medicins… See my former post touching that issue. And I’m convinced that if you could read the formulas of those products you would agree with me 🙂 > > > [@](#): > > > > In addition modern transportation greatly increases the risk of a plague spreading out of control. Modern medical knowledge goes some way towards balancing this increased risk. > > Yes, but the use of medications also increases the risk of a virus getting resistent, which makes the development of yet an other medicine necessary until yet an other is needed. > I fear that one day we wont even be abl to fight the most simple virus because new developments in medidine can’t compete with their ability to become resistent. > > > [@](#): > > > > I mean after all you could make a case that humanity and all our technology are the result of an entirely natural process. I certainly don’t see why the two have to be in opposition to each other. > > That is a valid case. Yet you come in opposition with nature when crossing the line of nature. Using animals for research is in my opinion crossing that line. > > > [@](#): > > > > my Gaia would happily see the entire planet stripped to the bedrock and every living thing on it extinguished in exchange for a chance to spread into space. > > Other then your use of the word “Gaia” is in Belgium the name of an Animal Rights organisation 🙂 > > > [@](#): > > > > I think we should respect the planet because it’s the only one we are going to get. It really is the height of arrogance to presume that we can wipe out the planet or even the life on it, but we can certainly make life very difficult for ourselves if we carry on the way we are going. > > I don’t think that we should kid ourselves either that we need to save threatened species so that one day they will provide the cure for cancer or that the planet as an entity will be diminished by their loss. I think that we should save species from extinction because I would very much prefer to live on a planet that still has blue whales, poison arrow frogs, and a million kinds of beetles, I don’t see why any more motive than this is necessary. > > We are in complete agreement here. > > > [@](#): > > > > As for animal rights, experimental animals are highly unusual in that they actually do have rights. They have a right to food, warmth, shelter, vetinary care, exercise, and ultimately a quick humane death. > > Except of the quick “humane” death, all the rest serves the interests of the one ordering the experiment. > > > [@](#): > > > > This might not seem much to you but it is certainly more than animals in the wild and some farmed animals and pets get, heck it’s more than some humans get. > > As lond a humans don’t interefere, animals in the wild live in their life in the wild. I think that is their right. > Farm animals and pets are the responsibility of the humans who keep them as such. > Humans in general are the responsibility of other humans when you live in a civilized society where social rights and laws are part of society and its morals. > > > [@](#): > > > > You could certainly argue that an animal would be better off in the wild, but it will certainly have more rights if it’s in a cage. > > I can’t see the logic of this statement. An animal in a cage depends entirely on the one who holds the cage and thus on the will of the individual to give it rights. When reading some of the posters here that would be not much to none. > > > [@](#): > > > > People can see the value of those around them, whereas they have difficulty seeing a single human life in the statistical sense as the same thing; I sometimes think that the world would be a far better place if more people could make the connection. > > For The amount of people who can’t make such connection surpasses > > That said I do find the “if you are against animal experimentation you think that animal life is more important than human life” slightly unfair. I can see how many people can believe that the human life is more important but still not believe that justifies depriving the animal of it’s life to save the human. It is also true that not all animal experimentation will save human lives. My research probably won’t save anyone’s life, although it certainly has the capacity to improve a lot of people’s quality of life, and yes make someone else an awful lot of money. > > Not all research carried out on animals is in any way justifiable and this is certainly not helped by the economic pressures that scientists now work under (but that’s a whole different thread). > > Where do you draw the line? \*\* ---
**Author:** ![Aldebaran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Aldebaran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aldebaran)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2003, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-experimentation/218184/83 "2003-12-20T18:26:02Z")
Sorry, I touched a wrong button here… Continue the former post: > [@](#): > > I can’t see the logic of this statement. An animal in a cage depends entirely on the one who holds the cage and thus on the will of the individual to give it rights. When reading some of the posters here that would be not much to none. For as far as I know the amount of people who can’t make such connection surpasses those who can. (think only about the wording “collateral damage” to prove how people think about the death of others) > [@](#): > > That said I do find the “if you are against animal experimentation you think that animal life is more important than human life” slightly unfair. I find it an easy way to come to an unbased conclusion. > [@](#): > > Not all research carried out on animals is in any way justifiable and this is certainly not helped by the economic pressures that scientists now work under (but that’s a whole different thread). > > Where do you draw the line? The line is where the value of life is. In my opinion every life has equal value. If humans don’t want to use humans for experiments, they cross that line when they consider animal life less then theirs. The next discussion could be: To which extend is animal life just the same life as human life. Salaam. A [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-experimentation/218184.md?page=4)