I’m sorry, but this simply makes no sense at all, and your comparison’s completely invalid.
The fact that synthetic insulin might have required animal testing X years ago does not change the fact that it doesn’t require it now.
Injecting synthetic insulin now does not require the use of living creatures; the research into that is long, long over. In effect, the use of swine in creating synthetic insulin is a sunk cost. The use of synthetic insulin now and in the future does not require the deaths of animals. It would be absurd for an animal rights activist to oppose the use of synthetic insulin; its continued use does not require the use of animals. It’s unfortunate (from the perspective of an animals rights activist) that its creation required animal testing, but that ship has sailed.
Your vegetarian comparison’s invalid because to eat meat now requires that animals die now. More people eating meat requires that more animals are killed. A person advocating that animals not be killed but who eats meat is a hypocrite; their actions (killing animals) directly contradict their words (don’t kill animals.) But a person who injects synthetic insulin today isn’t killing animals.
I’m sorry, but that’s simply nonsense. The idea that she’s a hypocrite unless she bravely makes a stand for her beliefs by refusing to use any product that was ever tested on animals is not even faintly reasonable. Since insulin is now produced by recombinant DNA technology, no animals are involved (though some may weep for the poor bacteria who produce it, slaves to the pharmaceutical industry.) Her using or not using insulin doesn’t make any difference to the animals it was tested on in the past; there is no gain from not using it. If insulin were still produced by slaughtering pigs, she’d be a hypocrite to use it and demand that no one else do so. But it’s not, and only the most rigid loony would decide that, even though the insulin you buy today wasn’t produced from animals, it’s still wrong to use it because once upon a time it was tested on animals. From a rationalist standpoint, it would make no sense at all for her to decide to take a stand by killing herself, not when it doesn’t prevent the harm to others that she’s upset about. It’s absolutely bizarre to call someone a hypocrite because they don’t take their particular stance to some absurdist extreme like that. That’s stupid; if the term “hypocrite” applies to everyone who is not an irrational extremist, then it’s meaningless.
But she’s saying *other *people should die - that’s what makes her a hypocrite. She’s saying other, future people should die, but she shouldn’t.
She’s saying we should not use or test on animals to discover or create new lifesaving drugs. Yet she herself uses a lifesaving drug tested on animals.
It seems a pretty dictionary definition of hypocrite.
True, but a person who actively opposed animal testing seeks to deny potential life-saving treatments to others, such treatments requiring animal testing/processing at first but perhaps eventually moving beyond it. If I wanted to undermine her, I’d show her a picture of a child suffering from untreated diabetes and a picture of another child with another potentially lethal but as yet untreatable disorder and ask why the first child can be treated but the second cannot.
I disagree. I’m with Excalibre on this - you can believe animal testing is wrong yet still profit from that testing without being a hypocrite. She would be a hypocrite if she said we shouldn’t test on animals, yet supported current animal testing, or future animal testing. But why shouldn’t she profit from results where animals have already been used? Her position isn’t that animal testing isn’t successful.
No, it doesn’t. I understand that animal rights activism is very unpopular here, and I don’t particularly want to defend it since it’s not my viewpoint. But it would simply be irrational to refuse the benefits of current therapies, whatever their source, as long as their production doesn’t involve killing the cute, precious bunny rabbits. No bunny rabbits are going to come back to life if she refuses her insulin. There is nothing to be gained by doing so, and thus it is simply not a rational action.
You might believe that future lives will be lost if bunny rabbit testing is outlawed. I’d probably agree with you. From what I understand about the drug discovery process, testing in bunny rabbits (actually, I think it’s mostly rats and dogs) is still an absolutely vital aspect of developing a new drug. That would be one of the reasons I’m not an animal rights activist. (Though I think they frankly have a pretty good point in a lot of cases; in fact, it’s only thanks to them that so many cosmetics aren’t tested on bunny rabbits, and it’s hard to find any purpose such testing ever served.)
At any rate, these imagined future lives are not comparable to actual lives lost in the present. It’s possible that, were animal testing outlawed, more advanced biological assays could be created to determine the same things. It’s possible it would spur the development of cruelty-free simulations of human physiology. It’s not very likely, in my opinion, but it is possible. And any policy decision anyone makes might potentially endanger future lives. She may feel that killing more bunny rabbits, and thus saving future human lives, is not a trade worth making - but that doesn’t obligate her to die herself, not if it won’t save any lives. Only an extremist would do that. It’s not inherently unreasonable not to be an extremist. In fact, the other way around is a lot closer to the truth. She may even feel like it’s unfortunate that she didn’t die in her youth from her diabetes since her life’s being saved was the indirect result of killing bunny rabbits. But it would still be a bizarre, irrational act to let herself die now, as it wouldn’t bring a single bunny rabbit back to life.
Yes, pandering to the media is often effective. I’d rather see politics elevated to the level of reasoned discussion rather than blind, unjustifiable appeals to emotions, but I’ll remember not to hold my breath.
This is why I think the label “hypocrite” is thrown around too frequently. Her policy is short-sighted and condemns others to suffering - why muddy the waters by trying to jam “hypocritical” in there? It just leads to pointless arguments about the definition of the word rather than the actual consequences of her actions.
Even if she herself wasn’t a diabetic, there are millions of diabetics now living normal lives with insulin injections who would otherwise be suffering and dying had Banting and Best not pursued animal studies. The fact that she herself is a diabetic makes her already bad position slightly worse - it’s not even close to being the biggest flaw in her reasoning.
Instead, she just gets flatly labelled a hypocrite, which to me seems lazy.
Appeal to emotions? Hardly. I’d be asking for her frank evaluation and reasoning on the issue. I don’t even need the pictures - it’s evident that medical disorders exist and evident that at least some of them can be treated and evident that animal testing is an important if not critical aspect in creating these treatments. She’ll already have used images of suffering animals to support her position; I’d confront her with the idea of suffering humans. That she herself is a diabetic makes it possible to personalize the issue (as would be the case if she had a close friend or relative who was diabetic). Without this personalization, it’s easy to call for an end to animal testing and simply choose not to think about the human suffering that would continue as a result, seeing as it occurs among a vaguely-defined population of “other people” to whom one has direct no connection.
Eh, I’m not going to go to the mat on this one, because in real life, I actually agree with Excalibre. I think it’s the height of irrationality to not support animal testing. But again, I don’t think she’s being *consistently *irrational, if you know what I mean. If her irrational stance leads to harming others (or withholding help), then she should accept that harm herself. Aren’t insulin batches tested for safety by administering them to animals? It wasn’t just the ones in the original research that suffered or died, I don’t think. (I will accept informed correction on this point, as I’m not sure, of course.) Regretable, but better than humans dying from a tainted batch.
I’m *glad *she takes insulin. I don’t think people should die of preventable causes, if at all possible. If she wants to fight the FDA to accept non-animal trials, I’ll stand next to her and fight with her.
Is an anti-fur activist being hypocritical by wearing fur? After all, those animals are already dead. How about wearing a fur bought at a thrift store - no money went from the activist to support the fur industry. Not wearing the fur won’t bring the animals back to life.
I don’t disagree with any of this. My problem is with the reasoning expressed in trying to make her into a “hypocrite” rather than simply someone who is uninformed or making what I would consider morally indefensible choices about the whole issue.
But the value of a fur coat is entirely socially constructed. It’s not warmer than gortex or anything. Synthetic insulin is a different sort of product.
Perhaps it would. Perhaps she is saving us all from the horrible wrath of the Hypoglycemic Zombie Swine.
Swine? No one cares about swine. When you see PeTA posters, it’s never pigs, it’s always cute little bunnies and kitties and puppies. THOSE POOR PUPPIES!! Don’t you care about the cute little puppies with their big, sad eyes? Maybe you need to look in the mirror. Maybe you’re the swine.
If an anti-fur activist wears furs bought at a thrift store, I see no hypocrisy there. Indeed, PETA has had fundraisers in the past in which folks donate fur coats to give to the homeless; they recognize that once the animal is dead, there’s no point in denying the benefit it can serve, as long as you’re not encouraging the killing of more animals.
I think anti-animal-rights folks are confused. They believe the animal-rights test is, did any animal die to give me this benefit? The test I see more often is, will my accepting this benefit cause any animals to die? You’ve got to put the horse before the cart here.
Speaking of which, do folks believe that animal-rights advocates may drive cars (leaving aside the beef products found in tires and asphalt)? After all, automotive technology is predicated on horse-and-cart technology.
Speaking of which, do folks believe that civil rights advocates may live in the Southern United States? After all, the region was developed by the institution of slavery; is it not hypocritical to benefit from this practice even though it’s abhorrent?
The standard of consistency demanded just doesn’t make any sense.
DanBlather, it wasn’t whether alcoholism is a disease and/or incurable I disputed, but that the view that it is both is (almost) exclusively American. As far as I know, that is the dominating view in most of the Western world.
You guys are arguing back and forth about PETA and hypocrisy, but no one has yet bothered to look up the actual situation. The person we are talking about is Mary Beth Sweetland, Vice President of PETA. She is now the Director of Research and Investigations Department. Here is a quote from her in Glamour magazine from January 1990:
The question of whether she would be a hyprocrit for using a drug that was tested on animals is interesting, but here we see that she was using a drug that actually contains animal products while she worked for PETA. I think we are officially in hypocrit land.