Memorandum submitted by Simon Gould
A new animal welfare Bill is to be welcomed,
but if Rt Hon Margaret Beckett MP is to be correct that it will
ensure that this country "re-establishes itself as the pace
setter for animal standards throughout the world" then the
moral approach needs to be consistent. However one justifies it,
it remains immoral to say that one may be cruel to an animal if
one gains benefit from it.
Animal Experimentation should not be excluded
from the proposed act. The cost/benefit approach has nothing to
do with morality but much to do with human greed and expediency.
(It is like saying that rape is acceptable if the benefit derived
by the assailant is estimated to be greater than the suffering
experienced by the victim). The way forward is to decide upon
a date by which all animal experiments must cease. I am sure that
this would create the necessary incentive for the pharmaceutical
industry to develop more rapidly the non-animal alternatives to
animal testing. Then the animal welfare bill would be truly pacesetting.
20 August 2004
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