Rabbits don146;t march

As a proud Oxford historian, and as a less than proud human being 8212; who, post-Darwin, believes that humans are not God ordained creatur...

As a proud Oxford historian, and as a less than proud human being 8212; who, post-Darwin, believes that humans are not God ordained creatures on earth but slightly developed apes 8212; I was outraged at the recent pro-animal testing demonstrations in my own university town. Desensitised 8216;scientists8217;, backed of course by those who would lose their trade if humans were to lessen their cruelty towards animals, marched along the main streets of Oxford holding placards that supported, even glorified, animal testing. I can understand disagreements with some of excesses of animal rights activists. Yet no sane or ethical human brain can justify the inhuman treatment of animals, though some of us 8212;8216;practical8217;, unconcerned, or simply helpless 8212; can manage to turn away from the issue, or trivialise it by saying that there are more immediate concerns that deserve our attention.

The reason why the demonstration, with its unabashed advocacy of animal use for scientific projects, is the cause of a deeper disappointment is that here were people persuaded, not by blind religious obligation, or sadistic urges to hunt, or simple gluttony, to advocate the torture of animals, but what they thought was the desire to further the cause of science.

It is perhaps ironical that the world8217;s most famous animal rights thinker, Peter Singer, is from Oxford, and, unsurprisingly, edits the Oxford Readers Series on Ethics. But I should have expected the scientific community to miss the point of ethics. I wonder if the protesting marchers were aware that one of the most productive phases in the history of modern medicine was when, during Nazi rule, animals came to be replaced by human beings. Animal replacements were, of course, Jews, and to have humans at the disposal of the medical gaze was a giant leap in scientific possibilities. Since modern medicine has always depended upon conducting experiments on 8220;lower life forms8221;, Nazis did not really violate the basic principle, because in their own unique ideology, there were enough 8220;lower life forms8221; that did not match their 8220;standards8221;.

One of the greatest privileges for doctors in the 8217;30s Germany was to see a live human heart die 8212; a simple procedure, for all that needed was to cut open a living human being and watch him perish. What the historian Robert Proctor8217;s research in areas of Nazi medicine revealed was that German doctors murdering Jews and other 8220;discards8221; did so, not under any particular pressure from the state, but under voluntary enthusiasm in the name of scientific progress, an enthusiasm, I am ashamed but not surprised to see on the placards of Oxford marchers.

We have done this in the past and we do it again. The convenient, comforting lines between different forms of life, lower and higher, slaves and masters, men and women, Aryans and Jews, all this so that in our pursuit of 8220;higher8221; aims, and some cash on the side, a few convenient cruelties can be heaped on those who don8217;t protest. Nor can they 8212; rabbits, apes, pigs, squirrels, frogs, birds, snakes 8212; march the streets of Oxford.