Animal Writings

This is my initial response to Josie Appleton's essay, "Speciesism: a beastly concept". The essay is pro-cruelty. It's beastly in its arrogance and misinformation.

Dear Ms. Appleton:

Speciesism as practiced treats animals as things. One trip to a factory pig farm or concentrated battery caged-hen operation makes this abundantly clear. We also smash bullhooks into circus elephants to make them do tricks, shock captive rodeo calves with 5000-volt prods so they'll run faster, and skin rabbits alive for our vanity. Animals are so far from being treated with equal moral consideration that to fear they may have too much is ludicrous.

In animal laboratories, we see how long rats will tread water before they give up and drown. We shock newborn kittens and monkeys—decade after decade—to "prove" that babies need their mothers and vice versa. AIDS research on primates has been a bust, yet we continue to squander scarce resources on it—which may be seen as anti-human. Drugs that destroy tumors in rats are worthless in humans; using rodent data to predict whether a substance will cause cancer in a human is no better than flipping a coin; the head of the National Cancer Institute, in a moment of honest clarity, once called the history of cancer research cures that worked in mice but failed in humans. Animal experiments couldn't even show a conclusive link between tobacco smoke and cancer. Even where superior non-animal alternatives exist—to test skin irritancy or toxicity, for example— increasingly archaic animal tests that cause enormous pain and suffering persist.

There is a huge list of drugs that were safe in animals but produced deadly side effects in humans. Misleading animal data delayed the application of penicillin— the world's most important antibiotic—by a decade. Let's quit pretending that every animal experiment, or even most of them, are done to save human lives. Because animals are sentient beings who feel pain and suffering, the burden of proof of whether animal experiments are necessary to cure disease rests on the pro-vivisectionists. So far, they have done a lousy job. They've done a great job of marketing, however. They scare an uninformed public into fearing that cancer won't be cured unless we experiment on animals.

Many learned minds would disagree with your assertion that a human-centered worldview is necessary to cultivate just and meaningful human-to human relationships. Personally, I think the assertion is preposterous on its face. To sever our moral obligations to the other beings of the world makes us more hard-hearted and selfish; more isolated from the multitude of species and individuals with whom we share the planet. To include animals in our moral universe makes us more peaceful. It is only the speciesists who are threatened by animal rights. Those who practice least harm for all sentient creatures, and the Golden Rule for all beings who benefit from kindness and suffer from callous cruelty, welcome a more equitable world.

You state that "Wanton torture is wrong, though less because of the pain it causes to the animal than because it reflects badly upon the torturer." This is obscene. Torture is the most heinous evil. It is the state we most profoundly fear, for us and our loved ones, including our animals. To be tortured is our worst nightmare. When animals are tortured, they writhe in pain, they scream, they shake, they defecate uncontrollably, they contort—they react just like us. For them, the pain may even be worse, since they lack certain coping mechanisms available to humans. It is hellish. And you are worried about how it reflects on the torturer. That sentiment is not just speciesist but megalomaniacal. What kind of cold-hearted soul does not weep for a defenseless animal enduring protracted, unbearable suffering? The coyote whose paw is crushed in a steel-jaw leghold trap, who in exhaustion and desperation chews off her own leg so she can feed her young? The cat in some sadistic experiment who is shocked with every step she takes? The pig hanging upside down in slaughterhouse shackles, bleeding and alive, squealing for dear life as he's lowered into boiling water? The fox in a fur "farm" who paces endlessly in his tiny cage, yearning to run free, and eventually giving up, and lying in a heap until he is killed by anal electrocution? The raccoon dogs in China, swung overhead so their head crashes into the ground, then de-skinned while still weakly struggling? What twisted sickness drives a person to rationalize mass torture? Can you not look into these animals' eyes and realize the tragedy of what we are doing to them? Can you not confront your own complicity in all of this?

Lastly, taking a "bear-centered perspective," even in those exceptional circumstances where our will to live compels us to act contrary to the bear's interests—is what makes us human. Actually, that's not quite right. Many species of animals have demonstrated displays of altruism that literally take your breath away, and I've witnessed this with my own eyes. Empathy is a gift that we humans share with other species; Let's "widen our circle of compassion," as Albert Einstein counseled, and use our shared gift of empathy to the best of our ability. That will bring peace.