Animal Rights Groups Go Too Far Essay, Research Paper

Animal rights groups go too far

By Travis Kirin

???????Animal rights groups, such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, claim to be preventing animal abuse, but instead seek to impose their antihuman ideology by trying to stop people from using animals to save human lives and helping terrorist organizations firebomb and threaten those who oppose them.

???????The modern animal rights movement got its start in the 1970s when Tom Regan and Peter Singer both wrote books claiming it was “species-ist” to make moral distinctions between human beings and animals.

???????What does this mean? After a speech on animal rights in 1989, an audience member asked Regan, “If you were aboard a lifeboat with a baby and a dog, and the boat capsized, would you rescue the baby or the dog?”

???????Regan responded, “(If) it were a retarded baby, and a bright dog, I’d save the dog.”

???????Ingrid Newkirk, PETA national director and co-founder, put the matter bluntly by noting “6 million people die in concentration camps, but 6 million broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses.” That Newkirk is comfortable comparing the raising of chickens for food to the Holocaust illustrates the depravity of the animal rights extremists.

???????Groups like PETA take this misanthropy and run with it by working to ban all medical research involving animals.

???????It is difficult for people today to imagine how devastating diseases such as polio, small pox, rubella and tetanus were before vaccinations were developed. Thanks to vaccines, all of these diseases have been practically eliminated in the United States and are slowly going by the wayside in the rest of the world.

???????Other human problems have been brought under control thanks to products synthesized with animal products. Insulin, for example, has allowed millions of diabetics to prolong their lives.

???????Animal experimentation was essential for developing organ transplantation procedures that save thousands of lives annually.

???????Yet groups such as PETA want humanity to abandon this progress and stop all further medical research on animals. Placing animals on a higher moral plane than humans, these extremists put more value on the lives of pigs used to produce insulin than the lives of millions of human beings who will die if they don’t get insulin.

???????As Newkirk put it, even if animal experimentation would find a cure for AIDS, “we’d be against it.”

???????PETA gets a lot of support from people because it successfully hides some of its extremist beliefs. A large number of those who contribute to PETA are pet owners rightfully concerned about animal abuse. Little do they know that PETA advocates eliminating what it calls “companion animals.”

???????According to Newkirk, “pet ownership is an absolutely abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation.” PETA and other animal rights groups seek to rectify this “abysmal situation” by ending the breeding of domesticated animals and allowing those species to become extinct.

???????Of course this means eliminating the use of guide dogs for the blind and macaques who are trained to care for paraplegics.

???????PETA spokesperson Kathy Guillermo told a radio audience, “I’m against using guide dogs,” and Newkirk has said, “(In) a perfect society, we won’t have a need for (guide dogs).”

???????In case you think this sounds a bit unfair, remember a blind person or a paraplegic means no more (if not less) to animal rights activists than a dog or macaque.

???????Since PETA has been unable to convince many people to adopt its extremist positions, it sponsors terrorist groups who use violence to force change. PETA is closely affiliated with the Animal Liberation Front, a group classified as a terrorist organization by both the FBI and Scotland Yard, which firebombs laboratories and uses threats of violence against people to try to achieve its means.

???????ALF has caused millions of dollars in damage to laboratories, which it sets on fire.

???????Not only does ALF end up destroying valuable research data that could save human lives, but it usually ends up killing many of the laboratory animals it’s supposedly acting on behalf of.

???????PETA knows no bounds to its support for animal rights terrorists. When Fran Stephanie Trutt, a member of the extremist Friends of Animals, was convicted of attempting to murder Leon Hirsch, president of the U.S. Surgical Company, PETA paid all her legal expenses.

???????Despite the terrorism committed by ALF, PETA actively supports it, allows it to advertise in its publications and acts as a public relations front for the group.

???????Thankfully, there are still brave souls in the scientific community and the public who are willing to speak out against these absolutely unethical animal rights fascists.

Bakke, O.M., Wardell, W.M., and Lasgna, L. Drug discontinuations in the United Kingdom and the United States, 1964 to 1984: issues of safety. Clin. Pharmacol. Ther. 35, 559-567.

Balls, M. (1989): Use of animals in research. Nature 340, 10.

Bernstein, S.L. (1989): Misguided thinking on animals. Nature 339, 414.

Botting, J. and Morrison, A.R., 1997. Animal research is vital to medicine. Scientific American, February, 1997, 83-85.

Botting, J. and Morrison, A.R., 1998. UnScientific American: animal rights or wrongs: An op-ed. HMS Beagle: The BioMedNet Magazine,25(Feb.20)1-7 (http://biomednet.com/hmsbeagle/1998/25/people/op_ed.htm).

Brunett, P. (1989): Twenty years of medical advances. Journal of the American Medical Association 261, 782-783.

Casey, K.L. and Dubner, R. (1989): Animal models of chronic pain: scientific and ethical issues. Pain, 38, 248-252.

Cherfus, J. (1990): Two bomb attacks on scientists in the U.K. Science 248, 1485.

Cohen, C. The case for the use of animals in biomedical research. New England Journal of Medicine 315, 865-870.

Coile, D.C. and Miller, N.E. (1984): How radical animal activists try to mislead humane people. Am. Psychol. 39, 700-701.

Comroe, J.H, Jr., and Dripps, R.D. (1976): Scientific basis for the support of biomedical science. Science 192, 105-111.

D?Hooge, R. (1991): Animal experimentation (but without man at the center of the universe). J. Med. Ethics 17, 213-214.

Durant, J.R., Evans, G.A., and Thomas, G. P. (1989): The public understanding of science. Nature 340, 11-14.

Good, R.A. (1990): The value of animal research. Science 248, 538.

Goodwin, F.K. and Morrison, A.R. (1993): In animal rights debate, the only valid moderates are researchers. The Scientist 17 (Sept. 6), 12.

Herzog, H.A., Jr. (1988): The moral status of mice. Am. Psychol. 43, 473-474.

Herzog, H.A., Jr. (1993a): “The movement is my life”: the psychology of animal rights activism. J. Social Issues 49, 103-119.

Herzog, H. (1993b): Human morality and human research: confessions and quandries. Am. Scholar 62, 337-349.

Harton, L. (1989): The enduring animal issue. J. Natl. Cancer Inst. 81, 736-743.

Holden, C. (1989): Universities fight animal activists. Science 243, 17-19.

Iglehart, J.K. (1985): The use of animals in research. New England Journal of Medicine 313, 395-400.

Kaplan, J. (1988): The use of animals in research. Science 242, 839-840.

Koshland, D.E. (1989): Animal rights and animal wrongs. Science 243, 1253.

Landsell, H. (1988): Laboratory animals need only humane treatment: animal “rights” may debase human rights. Int. J. Neurosci. 42, 169-178.

Leonard, P.A. (1992): Of animals and men. Nature 357, 187.

Loeb, J.M., Hendee, W.R., Smith, S.J. and Schwarz, M.R. (1989): Human vs. animal rights. In defense of animal research. J. Am. Med. Assoc. 262, 2716-2720.

Masta, R.I. (1987): The case for the use of animals in research. N. Engl. J. Med. 316, 551.

Miller, B.L. (1991): Physicians and the animal rights movement. N. Engl. J. Med. 235, 1581.

Miller, N.E. (1991): Commentary on Ulrich: Need to check truthfulness of statements by opponents of animal research. Psychol. Sci. 2, 422-424.

Miller, N.E. (1985): The value of behavioral research on animals. Am. Psychol. 40, 423-440.

.

Morrison, A.R., 1996. The animal rights philosophy versus biological reality. Iowa State University Veterinarian, 58:10-17.

Morrison, A.R., 1995. Animal-based research and the animal rights movement. In H.A. Pincus, (Ed.), Research Funding and Resource Manual: Mental Health Addictive Disorders. American Psychiatric Association, Washington, pp. 439-457.

Morrison, A.R., 1996. Animal-rights movement’s ‘bible’ contains distorted revelations. The Scientist, p. 11, August 19,1996.

Morrison, A.R. (1993): Biomedical research and the animal rights movement: a contrast in values. Am. Biol. Teacher 55/4, 204-208.

Morrison, A.R., 1998. Book Review: Animal Models of Human Psychology: Critique of Science, Ethics and Policy by Kenneth J. Shapiro. Soc. Vet. Med. Ethics Newsletter 4 (December) 9- 10.

Morrison, A.R., 1999. Choosing to favor animals. Review of The Human Use of Animals, Case Studies in Ethical Choices, by F. Barbara Orlans, Tom L. Beauchamp, Rebecca Dresser, David B. Morton, John P. Gluck. Science, 283:181, 8 January 1999.

Morrison, A.R., 1996. Contributions of animal models to sleep disorders medicine. Lab Animal, 25:22-26.

Morrison, A.R., 1998. A different view of animal liberation: Reflections on the fourth plenary SVME session. Soc. Vet. Med. Ethics Newsletter 4 (May) 17-19

Morrison, A.R., 1994. Improving the public image of biomedical research. Lab Animal, 23:36-39.

Morrison, A.R., 1999. Making choices in the laboratory. In The Use of Animals in Medical Research, New Studies in Social Policy Series, Transaction Press, In Press.

Morrison, A.R. (1991): Research on animals: unforseen benefits. Science 245, 176.

Morrison, A.R., 1996. Rights, reason drive research. Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy, 11:21-26.

Morrison, A.R., 1999. A scientist at work. The Am. Biol. Teacher, In press.

Morrison, A.R., 1992. Speciesism: a perversion of biology, not a principle. The Am. Biol. Teacher 54/3: 134-136.

Morrison, A.R., 1998. Thoughts of a working scientist. Basic ethics of animal research clear within scientific mission. Working for Animals used in Research, Drugs and Surgery (WARDS)Science and Animal Care Newsletter, 9:1-2, Fall 1998.

Morrison, A.R., 1994. Understanding (and misunderstanding) the animal rights movement in the United States. In P.P. DeDeyn, (Ed.), Ethics of Animal and Human Experimentation, John Libbey Co., Ltd., London, pp. 93-106. 6.

Morrison, A.R., 1992. What’s wrong with `animal rights.’ The Am. Sch. Board J., Jan.: 20-23.

Morrison, A.R. and Botting, J., 1997. Confusion in the ranks. Guest Editorial for The Am. Biol.Teacher, 59/7:388.