What Opponents Say About Animal Research
The humane and responsible use of animals in medical and scientific research has the overwhelming support of scientists. Here are what opponents to animal research – none of them scientists – have to say.
Chris DeRose
Former actor, Director of Last Chance for Animals
"If the death of one rat cured all diseases, it wouldn't make any difference to me."
Ingrid Newkirk
President and co-founder of PETA
After an underground group called The Justice Department mailed 87 razor-blade laced threats to medical researchers studying news drugs on primates, Newkirk said: "Perhaps the mere idea of receiving a nasty missive will allow animal researchers to empathize with their victims for the first time in their lousy careers.I find it small wonder that the laboratories aren't all burning to ground. If I had a more guts, I'd light a match."
"Animal liberationists do not separate out the human animal, so there is no rational basis for saying
that a human being has special rights. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They are all mammals," said Ingrid Newkirk. Even if animal research were to produce a cure for AIDS, "We'd be against it."
"Even painless research is fascism, supremacist, because the act of confinement is traumatizing in itself."
Bill Maher
Comedian and PETA celebrity spokesman
"To those people who say, 'My father is alive because of animal experimentation,' I say, 'Yeah, well, good for you. This dog died so your father could live.' Sorry, but I am just not behind that kind of trade-off."
Michael W. Fox
Veterinarian and former advisor to the Humane Society of the United
States
"The life of an ant and that of my child should be granted
equal consideration."
Alex Pacheco
Co-founder of PETA
-
"Arson, property destruction, burglary
and theft are 'acceptable crimes' when used for the animal
cause."
- "We feel animals have the same rights as a retarded human
child."
Bruce Friedrich
PETA campaign coordinator
“If we really believe that these animals do have the same right to be free from pain and suffering at our hands, then of course we're going to be, as a movement, blowing stuff up and smashing windows. For the record, I don't do this stuff, but I do advocate it. ... I think it would be a great thing if, you know, all of the fast-food outlets, and these slaughterhouses, and these laboratories, and the banks that fund them exploded tomorrow. I think it's perfectly appropriate.”
Tim Daley
Member of the Animal Liberation Front
"In a war you have to take up arms and people will get killed, and I can support that kind of action
by petrol bombing and bombs under cars, and probably at a later stage, the shooting of vivisectors on their doorsteps. It's a war and there's no other way you can stop vivisectors."
Steven Best, PhD
Philosophy professor, University of Texas in El Paso
Member of the Animal Liberation Press Office
"We are a threat both economically and philosophically. Our power is not in the right to vote, but the power to stop production. We will break the law and destroy property until we win."
References
1. Venant, Elizabeth, and David Treadwell. "Biting Back: Animal Researchers, Industries Go On The Offensive Against Increasingly Militant Activists." Los Angeles Times, April 12, 1990.
2. Letter to the editor, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 1, 1999.
3. Vogue, September 1989.
4. Washingtonian, August 1986.
5. Politically Incorrect, broadcast on ABC October 22, 1997.
6. Fox, Michael W. Inhumane Society: The American Way of Exploting Animals. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992.
7. Bartlett, Kay. Associated Press News features. January 3, 1989.
8. Bishop, Katherine. "From Shop to Lab to Farm, Animal Rights Battle Is Felt." New York Times. January 14, 1989.
9.Speech at the Animal Rights 2001 conference. July 3, 2001. Quoted in a guest column by Richard Berman in USA Today, November 1, 2001.
10. 1987 BBC interview, quoted in a report to Congress, August 1993
11. Quoted in "US Animal Rights Activist Banned" by David Powles, The Burton Mail (UK), August 17, 2005
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