The Use of Animals in the Business Field
Ignorance is the speciesist’s first line of defense. Yet it is easily breached by anyone with the time and determination to find out the truth. Ignorance has prevailed so long only because people do not want to find out the truth. “Don’t tell me, you’ll spoil my dinner” is the usual reply to any attempt to tell someone just how that dinner was produced. Even people who are aware that the traditional family farm has been taken over by big business interests that their clothes come from slaughtered cows, that their entertainment means the suffering and death of millions of animals … and that some questionable experiments go on in laboratories, still cling to a vague belief that conditions cannot be too bad, or else the government or the animal welfare societies would have done something about it. But it is not the inability to find out what is going on as much as a desire not to know about facts that may lie heavy on one’s conscience that is responsible for this lack of awareness — after all, the victims of whatever it is that goes on in all these awful places are not members e’s own group.
It all comes down to pain and suffering. Not intelligence, not strength, not social class or civil right. Pain and suffering are in themselves bad and should be prevented or minimized, irrespective of the race, sex, or species of the being that suffers. We are all animals of this planet. We are all creatures. And non-human animals experience sensations just like we do. They too are strong, intelligent, industrious, mobile, and evolutional. They too are capable of growth and adaptation. Like us, first and foremost, they are earthlings. And like us, they are surviving. Like us, they also seek their own comfort rather than discomfort. And like us, they express degrees of emotion. In short, like us, they are alive; most of them being, in fact, vertebrae, just like us. As we look back on how essential animals are to human survival; our absolute dependence on them (for companionship … food … clothing … sport and entertainment … as well as medical and scientific research), ironically … we only see mankind’s complete disrespect for these non-human providers. Without a doubt, this must be what it is … to “bite the hand that feeds us.” In fact, we have actually stomped and spit on it. Now we are faced with the inevitable aftermath. This is evident in health reports due to our over-excessive consumption of animals.