Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals,
and the answer is:
‘Because the animals are like us’.Ask the experimenters why it is morally okay to experiment on animals,
and the answer is:
‘Because the animals are not like us’.Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction.
– Dr. Charles R. Magel, Professor of Ethics at Moorhead State University
If we are so similar to animals,
would it be okay for animals to experiment on us?
No, as it would be inhumane.
If we are so dissimilar to animals,
would it be okay for animals to experiment on us?
No, as it would be inhumane.
Sentient beings are sentient beings,
no matter what species they are of.
To ignore this is to lose part of our humanity.
Animals are like us. Aniamls are our ancestors, families, relatives and friends. SO testing on animal is crime.
The issue of animal testing is a very complicated one. While I do not support the testing of animals for vanity sake such as products that end up as cosmetics simply to mask our flaws or even testing that is aimed to push humanity beyond what is considered human. However, the scope of animal testing is much more bigger than what we can consider. Take our medicine for example, how many of them are not done on animals at their expense for the sake of saving human lives. While this is an unbearable truth, but the logic behind testing on animals is very much the same argument for those who choose a vegetarian diet. Someone once asked that plants are living beings too and wouldn’t eating them be killing them as well. The logic behind eating plants instead of animals is becos plants do not have a system as complicated as animals which give rise to pain and hatred. Plants do not experience pain in ways animals do. They have neither nerve cells nor a nerve centre. Pain would not serve any purpose for plants because they aren’t able to remove themselves from the pain-inflicting elements, unlike animals [who are forced to be unable to move away by imprisoning them]. This is absolutely true and the question is if medical testing is to be done on plants, is there a type of plant around that would react the same way which help humans assess whether a particular form of medicine is safe or not. But because plants are definitely unlike humans because of that makeup, what form of substitute is really available? I am no scientist and maybe the secret to this may lie in the revival of traditional medicine, the same old ways in ancient days where just by using a needle, one can detect poison in the food or soup. While i cannot be sure if animal testing extends way back to even ancient times, but being at the receiving end of the animals who sacrificed, we should always remember one very popular attitude as a Buddhist which i borrowed from another belief. “THEY DIED FOR US. WE LIVE FOR THEM.” In every waking moments of our lives, with whatever merits we do, we keep them in our prayer and dedicate to them by using the Dharma, so that even their lives as animals may hopefully be the last they will ever see in the last of their lives. Where possible, maintaining a healthy life will ensure that one will need less of medicine. Buddhism is a very complete religion that upkeeps both the mind and body as long as we really do it whether it is yoga or meditation. Maybe we should even collectively pray that medical science advance to a stage where one day animal subjects will also become redundant to our needs. It is not hard. With our collective prayers, maybe a certain consciousness/bodhisattva will descend as a human who will undertake this discovery in the name of science in the same way Einstein came and changed the world completely. We are not limited by what we can do but rather by what we do not know. Sometimes a moment of awakening can spark off a new future for mankind.
Although drugs have helped us a lot, nowadays there are not many good new drugs are coming on board. Innovator companies are just coming up with “new” ones to switch the patients to to avoid them from using generic drugs. These “new” ones “wastes” animals as well.
And then there are new diseases coming up so swiftly and we still can’t cure. Animals will also be “wasted” in this sense.
But there is one good medicine that requires no harm to animals, in fact it can also help animals. That is the Great Compassion Mantra. You only need sincerity and a bit of time. No animal testing, no drugs, no money. What’s a better cure than that? 🙂
This world lives on results and testimonies. If only those who are cured can come forward and inspire faith with real life cases. That would help alot not only to share the fruits of compassion w- others. Buddhism then will be a forward religion becos the outcome are already embedded in the teachings. People search high and low sometimes failing to see what they have in their hands is already the solution they are looking for. Of course religion being a belief is solely subjective and it cannot be proved by means of efficacy through scientific means. But since science already proved that our mind or even stress can mutate genes, the very cure to illness is really through the pacification of our mind. The force of life is embedded within this form. Who are the true masters of our form? They are none other than us.
We can also go for TCM as medicine and tell the doc to use only vegan ingredients.
(Y)