Worth It

Yesterday I found myself walking through McMaster University's campus here in Hamilton. I was with a friend and as we passed the Medical Centre and Life Sciences building, we got on to the topic of animal testing on campus. In the United Kingdom this issue is big news, with doctors and researchers harassed and threatened by "animal rights activists". The message of these activists was largely discounted through their use of violence. But violence did get them coverage (think of the airtime given two occupied countries with fundamentally different national liberation struggles, Tibet and Palestine). Compared with the UK, animal testing barely registers as a concern for Canadians.

As far as I know McMaster still conducts research on animals, from mice to monkeys. Anecdotally when I worked for Physical Plant at McMaster I heard of one occasion when a driver took a radioactive cat to Toronto for some research purpose; God only knows the use of a glowing cat. As with all animal testing, McMaster's is kept hidden from public view. Animal labs are strictly off limits. Quite obviously this is done because if people knew how animals were being used they might very well protest. That most humans naturally oppose these tests gives me hope that these practices will end one day.

This practice raises a few questions for me. I like to think that I oppose animal testing from an ethical perspective and don't value my life any higher than any other being. However if I was to be diagnosed with cancer tomorrow would I sing a different tune and demand the eviscerate of mice to find a cure to save my little life? Is my life worth more than a mouse's or a monkey's? The answer is yes according to our society. If all animals (including humans) were equal then not a single mouse would be dissected for science. Maybe instead of hanging on we should accept that our time has come and pass away.

Another interesting question is: how glorious is a cure that has caused the deaths of countless lab animals to reach it? Doesn't these animals' suffering negate the benefits of a cure? That would be my argument.

And a final question: will the norm of human rights invariably expand to include non-human beings as well? Slowly but surely, more and more groups have been given inalienable rights around the world. It started with non-royal landed gentry, expanded to include all white men of a certain class, then all men, then white women, then men of colour, then men of darker colour, then women of these minority groups, then homosexuals and transgendered people (admittedly this is a very Western discourse but doesn't the West's experience essentially form the foundation of human rights?). Will animals be next? Some great apes are being taught sign language. What if they use this new language to demand not to be harmed or exploited?

I would appreciate some comments because this discussion needs to take place in Canada and in all other developed and developing countries.