Animal Rights or Animal Welfare?

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Originally Posted by elevatethis

So would you hunt people for meat? Lol...obviously not, but the point is, Animal Welfare means you hunt and fish and keep livestock with respect for them, while animal rights mean you treat them the same as you would another human being. It really doesn't make any sense to say you are for both, by my logic at least.

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I must tred carefully here.

For human to cause harm or pain to an animal for no other reason that they can is the lowest form of a person one can be.

For a human to take an animals life for food or for medical reasearch is ok in my book. Now for medical research! not to find a better mouse trap or to figure out just how much clorex they can drink before they die. I.E 9500 Billion rats and rabbits suffer and die to cure Polio or Luekemia or MS praise God he sent us rats and rabbits that would carry the burden, insteed of 9500 billion human cases being studied before a cure is found.

So you are for Animal Welfare because you would prefer to see animals "carry the burden" instead of humans.

Just wanted to clarify, since you said before:

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I support animal welfare and rights.

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My point is that by the description that Mendel gave of the two, they are mutually exclusive (you can't support both at the same time, it's contradictory).

Ok then. I'm for animal welfare. :D

And had I rather see 9500 billion lab rats and rabbits bred and raised for the reason of medical testing contract some horrid aflection like Polio or MS to find a cure instead of having 9500 billion people suffer through a lifetime of it to find a cure


Yea 100 %

I can say thanks to lab rats for things like the Polio cure so I know my kids want be stuck in crutches for their whole life, or thank cows for not haveing to put one of my kids or me or my wife in the ground because of smallpox. Cancer victims can thank lab animals for Cemo and radation thearpy. AIDs treatments right down to the FLU shot are all animal tested treatments.. I totaly thank them (the animals) that give their lives so I can live a longer, healthier, happier, more porductive life. With all my Heart.

Giving animals rights does not - at least to me - mean giving them the 'same rights as humans' - as someone wittily pointed out you can hardly give an anaconda the right to own property! The degree to which they are given would obviously depend on the species involved as well - an earthworm is not a cat is not a bonobo.

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Originally Posted by kurgan

Giving animals rights does not - at least to me - mean giving them the 'same rights as humans' - as someone wittily pointed out you can hardly give an anaconda the right to own property! The degree to which they are given would obviously depend on the species involved as well - an earthworm is not a cat is not a bonobo.

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totally agree

I would consider myself an animal rights activist (not a PETA crazy) but I also obviously have pets of my own.

I don't think that animals should have the same rights as us (as previously stated above) but I think that there needs to be some legal protection for them. As long as we take animals captive it is our responsibility to care for them as we would ourselves or our children.

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Originally Posted by slartibartfast

The documentary was called "Dealing Dogs" and aired on HBO. I watched it and the footage was grimly depressing and quite plausible.

http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/dealingdogs/index.html

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Thanks for providing this link.

I must admit at first I was very skeptical.

I am always very skeptical of undercover animal rights activists-Primarily because of the "undercover exposure" of allegedly poor care in the Silver Springs Monkeys that was made by Alex Pacheco during the political conception of PETA. For further information see

http://www.animalrights.net/archives...00/000035.html

http://www.nationalreview.com/smithw...0402100912.asp

That being said--from the reviews that I have read of this documentary, etc. this does look like a genuine exposure of neglect and animal torture. Note: I haven't seen the actual footage yet and I don't get HBO currently.

And this wasn't PETA...it was a different group.

A couple of points to consider:

(1) This wasn’t at a lab...this was at a kennel before they go to the lab. Universities lab are constantly inspected.

(2) The universities that continued to buy from this kennel after allegations surfaced did a grave disservice to all biomedical research. Note none of these universities involved (University of Missouri at Columbia, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, and Oregon State University) were top notch receivers of NIH funding.

(3) I don’t see anything suggesting this is a widespread problem-maybe it was mentioned in the documentary. This is like going into the worse public school documenting the problems and suggesting all public schools are bad. Or uncovering bad reptile care and saying that all herps should never be keep as pets. While they did uncover animal torture and abuse, their was a phenomenon going on in this part of Missouri that was well-known and rip for investigation—animals had been disappearing for awhile in this state so much so that it had been nick-named the “Steal Me State” by animal welfare groups.

(4) Dogs are not used that much in biomedical research—rodents are by far the most used model organism in research. However, one reason Dogs are useful though because they have kidneys that function similar to ours while rodents do not. An important part of science is argumentation-or the justification of a model system for the in-depth study a phenomenon.

(5) Model organisms-from yeast to monkeys-will be needed for quite some time in research. People who say things like “experiment on the convicts” really have no idea about how modern biomedical sciences progress. You can’t make a convict with knock-out gene with current technology in an ethical way. You’d be making a knock-out son or daughter of a convict. But it is practically feasible to make a knock-out or transgenic mouse to study a cell signaling pathway. You wouldn’t have the advantage of large numbers in humans.

In vitro research is useful, but not all questions can be addressed in vitro.

Computer simulations are only as good as the info you put into them- you get that info by doing research on cells and organisms.

This basic research is important for developing the models that allow pre-clinical and clinical science to investigate fruitful leads. I will take evidence-based western medicine over quack medicine any day (even if it is expensive!)

(6) Ideally, one would hope even the animal rights extremists would serve a purpose in achieving some sort of “compassionate balance” by keeping researchers honest in their welfare practices and considerate in using animals. To a certain extent this is true. Generally, our county seems to work well when both sides have some say and work together for a compromise. This group seems to genuinely uncover a real abuse and weakness in the current system and should be commended.

Other groups are so extreme--they are not rationale and they are willing to murder for their agenda. Some of these groups fund or are terrorists. I’ve heard that Homeland Security puts Eco-terrorism and animal liberation groups as a larger risk than Islamic extremist groups (maybe not in scale of attack, but certainly in frequency of attacks). These extremists serve no greater good in my opinion.

In the UK the animal rights extremists are generally worse than your side of the pond.
The regulations re: animal research are significantly stricter in the UK. Research animals are documented from birth onwards making it much much harder for that sort of thing to happen. The flip side however is that there is no possibility for a lab beagle to have a happy retirement as a family pet - they will spend all their life in insitutional care.

My animals should go on welfare! I am tired of supporting them, the lazy little suckers..!
Wait, that wasn't really funny... ::runs and hides::

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Originally Posted by Ginevive

My animals should go on welfare! I am tired of supporting them, the lazy little suckers..!
Wait, that wasn't really funny... ::runs and hides::

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One of my husband's cousins tried to get his animals on welfare...and claim them on his taxes...he almost got away with it too. :eek:

In the spirit of the quoted post (to which I found tremendously funny) I think that all animals should have the rights to demand welfare. ;)

Hello,

I have recently joined the site and am very excited about it. Anyway to the point.... Mendel, earlier in this post you claimed that human organs such as a kidney have not yet been able to be cloned in most cases you are correct. However a recent scientific discussed how a man, his name escapes me, recently GREW a bladder. what he did is selected several cells from deep inside a regeular human bladder and then he grew them around the mold of a bladder, he eneded up with a fully functioning bladder and had i put into severa people who had malfunctioning bladders alll had increased bladder funcion toa degree

Ty

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Originally Posted by ReptileFan

Hello,

I have recently joined the site and am very excited about it. Anyway to the point.... Mendel, earlier in this post you claimed that human organs such as a kidney have not yet been able to be cloned in most cases you are correct. However a recent scientific discussed how a man, his name escapes me, recently GREW a bladder. what he did is selected several cells from deep inside a regeular human bladder and then he grew them around the mold of a bladder, he eneded up with a fully functioning bladder and had i put into severa people who had malfunctioning bladders alll had increased bladder funcion toa degree

Ty

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Your right...I've heard about this.....If I get time I might try to dig up something on this.....I mentioned this before when I mentioned tissue engineering. I was a part of PTEI.

A bladder isnt a kidney though (kidneys are much more complex) However, The developments in bladder regeneration are exciting. There are also a lot of exciting things going on with cardiomyocytes--using them to heal hearts.

Even with the development of organs in vitro.....organs are not organ systems.......we'd still need animal research. It will be quite awhile before we can do away with animal research.

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Originally Posted by Shadowspider

One of my husband's cousins tried to get his animals on welfare...and claim them on his taxes...he almost got away with it too. :eek:

In the spirit of the quoted post (to which I found tremendously funny) I think that all animals should have the rights to demand welfare. ;)

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Wow; here in Ny state, he probably would have gotten away with it.. it is the welfare state, after all. :)

:sabduel: O god i know kindeys are very hard imagine a heart lol but i really dont think its far off i was just responding because someone (i dont think it was you now that i think lol) had said growing organs had not been done and was decades away. that is false . also skin has been grown in labs which is by definition an organ but i cant wait till we can grow hearts so many lives will be saved :salute:



edit : wow sry kinda big run on i do that lol like now

Animal Wlefare is prociding them with good health, food and everything addiquette to live. But say we needed to find a cure for whatever, and wanted to test some harmful crud on animals its ok, or want meat/milk/eggs to eat, we make farms to grow them in horrible conditions to satisfy our cravings.

Animals rights is against that, its FOR THERE RIGHT, just like people, they believe animal rights are just the same, jus tliek anyone else. AGAINTS animal abuse of ALL kinds.

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Originally Posted by Chester & Teagan

Animal Wlefare is prociding them with good health, food and everything addiquette to live. But say we needed to find a cure for whatever, and wanted to test some harmful crud on animals its ok, or want meat/milk/eggs to eat, we make farms to grow them in horrible conditions to satisfy our cravings.

Animals rights is against that, its FOR THERE RIGHT, just like people, they believe animal rights are just the same, jus tliek anyone else. AGAINTS animal abuse of ALL kinds.

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With rights comes responsibilities. I guess when an animal craps in the street then it should be thrown in jail. Th whole idea that animal have the same inalienable rights as we do is so impractical, ridiculous, and absurd.

I have feed the troll enough.....

If we give animals "rights" where exactly should we end them? Should a dog be able to marry a cat? Sign a contractual agreement? If I die, can I leave my Pastel my property?

Rights are bestowed on those who can actually use them, and more importantly, those that are aware of their meaning. If we are going to blur the line further, why stop at animals, why not plants as well? How about viruses?

The question has a confusing premise. Technically, we COULD consider anti-cruelty laws a "right" on its own, even if it's somewhat vicarious. Granted, it doesn't extend any real rights on the animals themselves, but it certainly prevents us (as humans) from committing said acts. However, the same could be said of life. We technically don't have the "right" to live, we do have laws against murdering however.

As for the issue of animal testing, I find it odd to be against it. While there is obviously some pain in the process of testing, I fail to see how that is any more cruel than their natural habitats. Mice are tested in labs, and eventually killed in a very humane way. That's certainly more than they are going to get in the wild, unless you consider being eaten alive a humane death.

Thought I'd update this thread...I found this recent scienceblog entry particularly interesting.

More thoughts on animal research: Pets & wild animals benefit, too.

Couple of quotes from the entry:

"Every year people adopt pet dogs, cats, birds, and other creatures and take them to their local veterinarians for all the usual vaccinations and exams. The usual vaccinations protect your pets from diseases like rabies, distemper, Feline Immunodeficiency Virus, and Feline Leukemia. But it's not just pets that get protected by vaccines. Agricultural creatures: fish, chickens, sheep, cows, pigs, and horses receive vaccines and increasingly, wild animals are getting vaccinated, too."

"Like the vaccines produced for humans, the vaccines produced for animals must be pure, potent, safe, and they must work. This means that all the vaccines that are given to your pets, agricultural animals, and wild animals were tested on lab animals to make sure that the vaccines are safe and that they work."

The comments and links in the comments are pretty interesting and informative as well.

I certainly don't think that the rights of animals should ever supersede or even equal the rights of humans such as the position that PETA takes. I also would put into different categories wildlife and domesticated animals as to our obligations to them. Any animal that is under man's care should certainly be afforded humane treatment and decent care.

I agree with testing life-saving medications/techniques on animals, providing all steps are taken to ensure the techniques are as humane as possible.

In my opinion; no number of lab-mice will ever equal a human life. Millions of mice are killed every day in traps, so it amazes me when protestors target labs working to cure cancer yet never step foot near a mouse-trap factory. :confused:

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Originally Posted by Sapphire7

I DO NOT agree with animal testings for any kind what so ever! I DO NOT think a life should be wasted for humans desire to learn more. We can COPY animal flesh and DNA and make an axact duplicate of it, why do it on animals any more? IMO They shouldnt suffer. A life is a life and a soul no matter what!

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Cultured organic cells, grown in Petri dishes, are still living organisms. They don’t live on water. For the most part they are fed Bovine embryonic paste. Which means cow foetuses are tossed into blenders to keep them alive.