Vivisection

Even the word “vivisection” sounds disgusting before you take the time to dissect it for its meaning: performing medical experiments on live animals. I have to admit it wasn’t pleasant to come back from Thanksgiving, sit down at my desk and get back to thinking about these kinds of issues. I felt the warmth from the holiday melt away as I flipped to the chapter in Spiegel’s book on vivisection and looked through all the pictures. My skin crawled as I tried not to imagine what those animals must have felt.

I really dreaded looking up vivisection pictures. I found this one which is from a site advocating against vivisection...in French!

http://international-campaigns.org/

I believe that vivisection is wrong. Like JR Tolkien said (and Spiegel quoted in her book), “he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.” (Spiegel, 72) it is an inescapably tricky moral situation, however. Titus writes in his paper that “Vivisection polarized Victorian England.” (Vivisection on Campus), but I do not think that is the case today: there is a lot of grey area. It’s hard to completely throw away animal research when good can come along with it. I do, however, think that the “at least the animals are dying for a greater good” argument is wrong and maybe even insulting. These animals are not martyrs. They are suffering for reasons that they do not even understand and results which they would not sacrifice themselves for. Sure some good, sometimes happens after animal experimentation, but that is no reason to justify it. If we accepted their deaths now as unfortunate ends to an otherwise positive experiment, than it can never be changed. Since when has “acceptable” been our moral compass?

There has to be another way. I’ve tried to rationalize with myself and say that some things are unavoidable—means to an end—but I really can’t believe that. Didn’t we used to think that slavery was “just the way it was,” and that the economy was too dependent on its existence for us to be able to stop? Now we recognize slavery for the evil that it was. I feel that if proper attention is paid to these wrongs, and any evil, really, they can be systematically stopped. While Spiegel noted that “relatively few studies are significant enough,” (Spiegel, 70) some are, such as Titus’ quail experiment which could lead to “improved medication for impotence and depression” (Vivisection on Campus). It is not practical to demand that investigation be cut out completely. Again, I believe there must be another way which would not harm animal’s lives. The case of animal dissections in schools comes to mind. (First of all, I’m not sure how necessary this hands-one experience is in high school, but that’s not really my point.) I’ve heard about how there are fake frogs that students are able to dissect. They might even be reusable and so would be much less expensive for the schools over time, a practical and more moral way to teach biology! Perhaps one day, in a similar fashion, we can run digital experiments on “animals.” A more short term solution may be to make experimental records more accessible to researchers. Because many experiments are repeated around the world, it seems plausible that researchers could access some sort of experimental pool to see the effect “chemical X” has on the skin before they run experiments, saving time, money and countless animal lives.

People are already trying to stop the use of frogs for dissection.

(from Peta2's Flickr photostream)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peta2flickr/3429181248/

I’m not sure about how I feel about UT being the most confederate campus in the world (especially as it’s coming from an Aggie....just kidding!) I think this is another ambiguous moral issue. Yes, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington owned slaves, but that does not make them entirely bad people. And UT is obviously not putting up these statues as subversive tributes to the Confederacy and slavery! The issue is not even clear, as the disclaimer at the end of the site states: “Wikipedia and official Texas articles about Pease state that he was a supporter of the Union and do not mention his slaves at all.” (Confederate UT) This issue may be compared to vivisection. The people who supported slavery years ago were not “bad” people. They were merely ignorant or miseducated. The same may be said of animal researchers: even if I believe that what they are doing is wrong, they do not and purpose one day everyone will think that it is wrong. Titus was once an animal researcher but now believes that vivisection is wrong. If Jefferson was alive in America today, he would not demand slaves for Mount Vernon 2.0; it was not innate in him as he was just a product of his time. Similarly we may come to see that animal experimentation and vivisection is wrong.