March
1995
What
to Say When Someone Asks...
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Q: Would you rather see your child die than
experiment on animals?
A: Fortunately, no one will ever have to make this
decision. Since vivisection often offers such misleading predictions,
the real choice is not between animals and children, but between good
and bad science. Vivisection has undoubtedly cost many children their
lives, by producing inaccurate and dangerous results, and by wasting
enormous amounts of precious time and resources on an archaic methodology
while promising new techniques are ignored.
Consider the enormous wastefulness of maternal deprivation studies,
in which animals are taken from their mothers and systematically abused
in a number of ways. The conclusion from these studies, that abuse and
neglect lead to psychological damage and social maladjustment, is hardly
an earth shattering revelation. It certainly doesn’t justify the
suffering of countless animals, or the millions of dollars which have
been spent to come to this foregone conclusion. Meanwhile, programs
to help abused and neglected children are deprived of the funding which
could make a very significant impact on these children’s lives.
If we are to truly help our children, we must take a broad look at the
factors contributing to their suffering, and the means we may employ
to prevent it. We must not be influenced by those with financial interests
in animal research and allow them to convince us that their outdated,
inaccurate methods will save the lives of our children.
This passage is Point 5 of a pamphlet called Point/Counterpoint published
by The American Anti-Vivisection Society. For more information about
this pamphlet and the AAVS write to them at 801 Old York Road, #204,
Jenkintown, PA 19046-1685. Tel: 215-887-0816.
Q: If farm animals are treated as badly as
you say, why are they so productive? Wouldn’t they stop producing
meat, milk and eggs if they were treated inhumanely?
A: Farm animals can be profoundly mistreated and still
“produce,” in the same way that profoundly mistreated humans
can be overweight, sexually active and able to produce offspring. Like
humans, farm animals can “adapt,” up to a point, to living
in slums and concentration camp conditions. Is this an argument for
slums and concentration camps? Farm animals do not gain weight, lay
eggs, and produce milk because they are comfortable, content, or well-cared
for, but because they have been manipulated specifically to do these
things through genetics, medications, and management techniques. For
example, cage layer producers artificially stimulate and extend egg
production by keeping the lights burning for 16 or 17 hours a day to
force the hen’s pituitary gland to secrete increased quantities
of the hormone that activates the ovary.
Animals in production agriculture are slaughtered at extremely young
ages, before disease and death have decimated them as would otherwise
happen even with all the drugs. Even so, many more individual animals
suffer in intensive farming, but because the volume of animals being
used is so big — in the billions — the losses are economically
negligible, while the volume of flesh, milk and eggs is abnormally increased.
This passage is taken from the pamphlet “ Don’t Plants Have
Feelings Too?” Published by United Poultry Concerns, Inc. If you
would like a copy of this pamphlet or more information, write to Karen
Davis, UPC Inc., P.O. Box 59367, Potomac, MD 20859. Tel.: 301-948-2406.
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