One of humanity's biggest conceits is that our lives are more valuable than the other animals on the planet.
Conceit or not, everyone thinks this to some degree. For example, when you use antibacterial soap, you are declaring your health to be more important than the bacteria on your hands. When you swat a mosquito or put a flea collar on your pet, you are declaring the life of the insect to be less important than the life of you or your pet. In everything we do, we show that we believe that our life is more important than the life of other organisms.
If you object to this because the organisms discussed above are "just" bacteria, mosquitos, or fleas, ask yourself why you draw the line there? Is it not a matter of convenience? It would be hugely inconvenient, if not well-nigh impossible, to consider all other life as valuable as our own. Meat eaters declare that chicken life, for example, is less valuable than human life. Even vegetarians make the implicit assumption that it is okay to destroy vegetable life in order to sustain their own.
If you have a problem with animal testing to produce perfumes, I can see the vanity in that. But animal testing to develop medicines? The number of animals harmed in order to research medicines is surely a tiny fraction of the number we consume every year. Are you actually willing to say it would be better to allow millions of humans to die, than to admit to animal testing? Would you be willing to allow your friend or relative to die an untimely death rather than use medicines developed with animal testing, on the grounds that this is the price of equality?
Animal testing is distasteful, but the alternative is even worse. It is easy to sit in the comfort of our homes, with modern conveniences all about, and rail against the unfairness of animal testing. But I venture to say that not many people would actually like to live in a world in which there was none.
SNG
