Animals have no rights at all; you might as well lick that frog

This week a group of lecturers came for the first time to speak on issues pertaining to the use of Animal Research, a somewhat touchy topic on campus and one that I have always adamantly voiced my opinion on. To the credit of my friend Kim and her colleagues at Oberlin Animal Rights (OAR) this is also the first time in three years that they have decided not to go and actively protest animal research in Sperry during the introductory lab course and have instead been active in a meaningful discourse at these lectures. However tried and true they hold to their stance, I still hold to mine. Since I will be leaving this place soon it should not matter to me whether or not the school continues animal research, but it does. I believe that it is not something that should be given up on or practiced as a tool to both teach students and learn more from successive research.

Just as researchers must justify their usage for the study of animals, invasive or not, my basic problem with the animal rights movement is that I would like them to justify the term RIGHT. By using the term Right, they are applying a human quality to other creatures. ANIMALS HAVE NO RIGHTS, a right is not a God-given quality, it is a human construct. RIGHTS are a moral concept and morality is a matter of choice. However, this is not to say we do not have a RESPONSIBILITY to PROTECT animals just as we have the responsibility of protecting all living creatures, since we are the most highly evolved animals only in terms of both brain capacity and mobile capacity that allow us to conceive ingenious ways of protecting earth. I also believe that we have an obligation not only as scientists, but as humans to study as much as we possibly can about our biological world. If a disease can be prevented from killing millions of people, or animals, or plants, then we should have an obligation to protect them through means of science or any other means that would do the trick. These benefits come at a cost, in cases were the cost of our planet outweigh the benefits of science, such as, exploitative deforestation and strip-mining or cosmetic testing on animals. In this case I do not believe we are protecting but harming the responsibilities that we should uphold. We should treat all creatures HUMANELY, as humans would treat them, not ANIMALLY as animals in nature would treat them.

Another reason animal research is under attack is that it is not understood by those attacking it. Most often those attacking its use are not from within the scientific community, but from other realms of study. Science, just like any other field of study, is a RELIGION. It attempts to study our world and understand it from a scientific perspective, whether it be in the physical sciences, such as physics, chemistry or geology or the biological sciences. Just as anthropology, sociology, and history attempt to understand our world in terms of human relationships and interactions; or just as math, philosophy, or computer science try and understand our world through means of logic; or religion through means of spiritual interpretation, so does science try and understand our world. All of these fields or "religions" are just as worthy as the other and none should be held above or below or censor the other. When animal research is attacked it is the conflict of two religions crossing paths, just as notable as any holy war between religions.

However, these perceived conflicts may not necessarily be conflicts at all except to the more fundamentalist groups of some "religions". Environmental Science is not in conflict with biological science or its use of animal research; in fact, environmental science has to gain from it as a field of study. They are not in conflict much like the Theory of Evolution is not necessarily in conflict with Christianity or any other religion. The conflict there is a result of religion stepping away from its boundaries of spiritual interpretations and into the realm of science and deeming evolution as evil-lution. (I'm proud to say as a Roman Catholic, I've heard the Pope has recently endorsed the theory of evolution as not conflicting with religious contexts.) These perceived conflicts between religions occur when one or neither group attempts to understand the other. If one branch of knowledge begins to determine the fate of the other, then one begins to censor the other just as Voltaire, Mark Twain, and Darwin have been censored in Public Schools or just as Einstein's, Freud's, Kafka's, and Schoenberg's books and works were burned under Nazi occupation. These four modern prophets in their respective fields were not only persecuted because of their Jewish ancestry, but their works were banned because of their radically different nature within their respective fields of Theoretical Physics, Human Psychology, Literature, and Music that others could not, or rather, would not attempt to understand. As a History major I see the use of applying these analogies and the importance of all fields of knowledge coexisting together. So I would like to request to Oberlin College students and faculty PLEASE don't ban my field of study, PLEASE don't bum my tools and instruments through which to study the world- after all we are obligated to study it.

As Biology and Neuroscience majors as well, I see the practical use and necessity of studying animals. And even more recently having studied abroad in a third world country last semester I hold fast to my ideas on research more than ever. Having studied epidemiology at a medical school there and having done clinical rotations in a hospital I see that we are also held to a SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY to help people like this as much as possible in the field of science and medicine. Having seen a newborn delivered into our world under grossly unsterile conditions, I feel more dedicated to research in aiding the enormous infant mortality rate in places were millions die from diseases like dengue, a deadly cholera-type disease that dehydrates humans from diarrhea and is transmitted through various forms. In fact I would like to challenge any member of OAR to walk into San Luis y Cabral Hospital Publica (public hospital) in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic for a day in the triage department were I worked and tell me we don't have social responsibility to help these people in every way possible medically. I would also challenge any member of OAR to step into the infectious diseases ward at San Luis y Cabral without fear of catching any disease or parasites and then refuse any medicine that has been previously tested on animals. It is true that preventative medicine is the best medicine, but in cases were it cannot be helped due to genetics or environment (including infectious diseases) then we are obligated to find solutions to these problems, after all we must protect our planet.

In conclusion all I have left to say is SMARTEN UP PLANETEERS; ANIMALS HAVE NO RIGHTS, SO GO AHEAD AND LICK THAT FROG.

-Francisco Franco is a college senior