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anti-vivisectionists on medication?
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Merrick
Merrick
2148 posts

Re: anti-vivisectionists on medication?
Sep 12, 2005, 16:58
I too am genuinely surprised at the level of fire in this argument. I think you raised a perfectly fair question there, BSSM.

And certainly, whilst there are a lot of commonly held viewpoints here on HH there's no way we all sign up to any one overarching credo, and this board should be about being able to pick apart ideas, to challenge them in an intelligent way.

If someone holds a view then they should be able to explin why, to defend it in some way beyond 'i don't like it'.

As both you and Rhiannon pointed out, we are all hypocrites. Indeed, the only people who aren't are those with no morals whatsoever. One of the first feature articles in U-Know was about precisely this point
http://www.headheritage.co.uk/uknow/features/index.php?id=3

For my own point, I'm broadly against animal experimentation, but i do use medicines tested on animals. Where there are effective alrternatives I use them, but with some medicines there simply are not.

So then I'm faced with the dilemma; is the suffering caused by my encouragement of animal-tested medicines worth the relief gained by my using that medicine?

It is, as Rhiannon mentions, a similar predicament to those of us who dislike fossil fuels yet use buses or cars or trains. There are a few who really will make the effort and not use any fossil transport, and more power to them (no pun intended) for pushing us all on the issue.

But for most of us, it is a matter of reducing use, of cutting it down to a large extent, of raising the issue so that alternatives come through and people in future don't have to be pushed into these awful choices.

The use of such medicines by no means indicates an across the board approval for vivisection, but I'm sure that's not what you were implying anyway.

I find it odd that this issue raises such ire in people when similar ones - such as the fossil fuel use - do not. Not sure why that is. Perhaps it's cos fossil fuel use doesn't conjour up images of helpless animals in agony. Although it should, given what oil companies do to the environment.

I too would like to hear the reasoned opinion of someone with an absolutist position against all vivisection when they see how much good can be done with animal medicines. It's a really tough call and I find it hard to have a consistent opinion on it.
In reply to:
Re: anti-vivisectionists on medication? (BSSM Steiner)
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