Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!uwvax!astroatc!johne From: johne@astroatc.UUCP (Jonathan Eckrich) Newsgroups: sci.research Subject: Re: animals of research Message-ID: <993@astroatc.UUCP> Date: 2 May 88 14:47:58 GMT References: Organization: Astronautics Technology Cntr, Madison, WI Lines: 54 In article jc5z+@andrew.cmu.edu (John L. Cusack) writes: >Well I hate to tell you about something like this, since I'm not to answer this >question, but suppose you can reduce human suffering or prolong life. What >good is there if you don't have anything to eat or other things. The suffering >would also be that there wouldn't be anything to enjoy if life is prolong for a >long time. You are suppose to enjoy life, because it's a gift to you as a >human, and you should not take it for granted. > >Well since doctors can kill and torture animals, why can't humans kill humans. >It may be against the judgement of God, but what the Hell we can kill Gods >animals so why not kill ourselves. The point is that everybody is forgetting >that we are also an animal, that God created. I am hesitant to post this to this group because I think this argument is better left to one of those soap box groups, none of which I subscribe to, but here- goes anyway. I take it from your response that you are opposed to the use of animals for scientific research purposes. I happen to support such a USE of animals. I take exception to certain statements in the above text. I don't fully understand what the point is of the first paragraph, but the second paragraph is clear. Doctors and researchers don't 'torture' or kill animals because it turns them on. Many of their jobs would not exsist if they could not use animal subjects. The results of their work are vastly inmeasurable in their contribution to improving the quality of life of all humans, and many animal species, including those species that the animal subjects are/were members of. Ever since man's hominids first picked up a bone to fend off an intruding preditor, we have been using animals to sustain and improve our lives. Just because today it is done in schools and hospitals in a considerably more complex, technical way, does not mean that it is any less important to our survival. As long as you brought up the subject of God, I shall continue on that note. God GAVE us the animals as gifts not to abuse, but to use by us, for us, for our benefit. Destroying individuals for what we as a whole deem a necessary cause, is in no way comp- arable to mass annihilation of a species, as we nearly did to the buffalo. I know that you do not condone the killing of humans simply because we currently kill animals. In your last statement, you accuse people of forgetting that we are also animals that God created. You seem to be forgetting that we are LIKE the animals in only a very superficial sense. Our bodies are mere husks by which the choices we make may be manifested. The difference is that we have souls. Animals have only husks. We are not gifts to them. We are not on an equal level with them, in God's eye's. They are gifts to us, that are to be used for our benifit, but not abused. Most of us probably wouldn't even exsist if we were never to use animals for our benifit, and this would deny us the greatest gift we could ever be given, our existance. -- (rutgers, ames)!uwvax!astroatc!johne | ihnp4!nicmad!astroatc!johne N1000M, 1948 Stinson 108-3 i12av8