Letters to the Editor
-
It's pretty clear why the feds are so upset
Think what would happen if these sorts of tactics were used more widely. By liberals. Against, say, news organizations that report Republican spin as truth. Or companies that lobby for the right to dump more poisons into the environment. Pretty interesting that the feds haven't been so proactive against anti-abortion sites that list the names and addresses of doctors who provide abortions -- even after a doctor was murdered by a sniper.
-
Who wouldn't be targeted by radicalism?
If SHAC's activities are condoned as legitimate political activism then what could we say about pro-lifers taking up firebombs, tear gas, and axe handles and carrying out a similar campaign of terror? It doesn't seem much of a stretch to imagine someone who feels as strongly about the sanctity of human life as SHAC's members feel about animal life taking up arms and systematically ruining the lives of people who do business with doctors who perform abortions. Or a militant jihadist targeting "enemies of Islam."
Huntingdon's been penalized for their violations of animal cruelty laws on numerous occasions. Isn't it enough to let these laws hold them in check while the technology of pharmaceutical testing advances to the point where the services Huntingdon offers are no longer required?
-
Quote from Henry Beston
On this subject, I would like to share a quote from Henry Beston, from his book,
The Outermost House, 1924:
The animal ... gifted with ... senses we have lost, living by voices we shall never hear,
they are not brethren, they are not underlings;
they are other nations,
caught with ourselves in the net of life and time,
fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth. ---Henry Beston, 1924
Our society's treatment of animals is a great spiritual evil, and is a reflection of the disease at the heart of our values and beliefs. The actions of animal rights groups are candles shining in the darkness. Any change of major proportion in consciousness comes with a wide spectrum of activity, some on the extreme edge. But someday, man may realize that we live side by side with the other beings on this planet, and not above them. The creator of one is the creator of all.
-
i wonder how many...
of these animal rights activists take any type of pharmaceutical?
im all for animal rights...
im totally against violence...
i think we've come a long way in how we treat animals and the procedures we use to test them...
it hurts my heart that we use them for these tests...
but if it wasnt for animals, myself, my brother and my mother would be dead...
so i just wonder how many of these activists are taking pharmaceuticals and would they be willing to give them up to further their cause.
-
Thugs for medical research
It would seem to follow, that if a group pursues it's goals by attacking opponents with axe handles, that it would only be a matter of time before one of their targets has his own axe handle and is coming after them. Reading this article, I wondered if Huntingdon, or any of it's peripheral "targets", has considered hiring its own thugs with axe handles (perhaps that may account for the corporate move to New Jersey)......
-
In the US
Only animals have human rights. So it stands to reason we would kill people to save them. Let's face facts - you and I will live to see the day an American is put on death row for killing an animal.
-
Thugs? Yes, and cowards, too
Labs like HLS exist because law requires new pharmaceuticals to be tested on animals. It's slow, expensive and labour intensive and generally a pain the backside that most companies would be happy to do without if they could.
So why not pester the government to change its laws? Oh, wait, try the same tactics on an MP/governer/senator and all hell would break loose. Safer to pick on a defenceless 90 year old woman.
I'm sorry, but morally, SHAC is no better than the idiots currnetly burning embassies and flags in Lebanon.
-
the feds have been waiting...
SHAC, ELF, ALF, EarthFirst! - the feds have been waiting for the opportunity to lock up all these folks - 9/11 and the Patriot Act have given them the chance to stop these groups in the name of the war on terror - and to do it within the law - we are steeping more towards a 100% fascist state everyday...
-
Another face of fachism
It is often said the end justifies the means. This article shows that it is the means that delimit and condem the ends. These people are as bad as the fachists of the Third Reich or Stalin's gulag. They are criminals and should be stamped out now.
!
-
There's got to be a middle ground.
Threatening people -- especially the totally innocent relatives of SHAC's targets -- is not only wrong, it's counterproductive in the long run. However, the legal punishments given to acts of cruelty by these companies are a joke. $50,000 to a company like Huntingdon is chump change, and certainly not enough of an incentive for it to insist on humane practices.
For now, we have to live with medicines refined through cruelty. What can make this more tolerable until the pharmaceutical industry catches up to the 21st century is for people of conscience to lobby for: changes in the drug approval process, strict application of anti-cruelty laws and much stricter penalties, and federal laws mandating humane treatment of any bird or mammal involved in research. If these animals are forced to give up their lives for marginal improvements in ours, we owe them at least this much.
-
I am better than a rat
Research HAS cleaned up it's act considerably. Notice that all the tapes of inhumane treatment are from the 90s--I defy them to show us a tape within the last 5-7 years.
Research to test each new product IS required by the US government, so the terrorist 'animal rights' group is misleading you to think only one company is responsible.
Frankly, I value MY life a lOT more than a rat's.
Most lab experiments are done on rats, especially those requiring disection. They are not indigenous to the US and help spred disease.
But the group misleads you to think that most research is done on CUTE puppie dogs so you'll get more upset. No one cries when a RAT is hurt. They also don't tell you that the cute puppie dogs are mostly used for skin patch tests to test for allergies for shampoo and other stuff like that. They get lotion put on a patch of their skin and then wait to see if it causes irritation. hardly torture.
Meanwhile, THEY'RE bashing in people's heads with ax handles? What hypocrites.
Losers better not mess with my Mom.