End Animal Testing

To the Editors:

I am concerned, as a student and personally, about some of the lab experiments going on here at Oberlin College. There are experiments on animals, both “preserved” and living, that are not teaching students anything that they could not learn in some other manner (in lectures, through videos, CD-ROMs etc.). “Practical experience” is not an excuse for these experiments because students are not learning anything new. For example, right now, in the introductory neuroscience labs, there are rats with electrodes placed in their brains by OBERLIN students. Is it right for the College to teach that doing such things to hurt animals is worth seeing how, in this case, “the pleasure centers” of the rat’s brain can be stimulated? It is not worth the unecessary repetition of such an experiment to maim and kill sentient beings. They live and feel as well. This should not be tolerated on Oberlin campus and alternative labs or information centers should be set up for students. Students need to understand what they are doing and be given the option not to cause this harm.
–Kathryn Hessler
College first-year
Oberlin Animal Rights