Little regard for fellow creatures

“I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn’t. The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further”.

These sentiments expressed by the renowned American author Mark Twain over a hundred years ago should resonate even stronger now, given that modern advances in science have discovered alternative methods for testing which do not include animals.

These methods of course come at a cost and sadly for the animals big corporations sole interest is profit irrespective of the price that is paid by the hundreds of thousands of animals that die every year.

The number of animals indicated in your recent report (Irish Examiner, Feb 20) does little to disprove the belief that generally as a race Irish people have little or no regard for our fellow creatures.

These animals live out their days and nights confined in cages and crates, completely alienated from their natural environment and subject to many painful tests for which over 80% of them do not even get any anaesthetic to minimise their pain.

It is well recognised and acknowledged by modern science that animals are similar to humans in their capacity to experience pain, hunger and thirst and yet we who consider ourselves the most evolved of the species abuse these creatures for the so-called “advancement of the human race”.

Shame on the people who conduct these experiments and on all of us who are complicit in their suffering by supporting the companies and organisations that perform such activities.

British writer William Inge provided food for thought, and maybe a few twinges of conscience, when he observed: “We have enslaved the rest of animal creation and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.”

Edward Twohig

Glounthaune

Co Cork