My childhood story
When I was a kid, I was interested in medicine. Our home library was full of textbooks on medicine, atlases of human anatomy and other useful sources of information. I spent hours reading them and exploring the pictures. In that period I understood that I was about to reveal the most magnificent secret of human existence – the architecture of human organism and principles of functioning of human organs. As some people I loved, suffered from allergy, with the help of scientific literature I wanted to find the way to help them cope with their disease.
Once I was said that their allergy attacks would be more continuous if the medicine they got and household chemicals they used would not be tested on animals. The price for the health of people was the life of animals. It was the moment when I became a passionate advocate of vivisection (animal testing). I claimed it was necessary for the development of science. I agreed that the price for scientific discoveries was very high – long and painful death of animals. Nevertheless, I could not find an alternative to this texting. I said “Ok. If the humankind rejects the idea of vivisection, the quality of pills and household chemicals will be miserably reduced. Moreover, such situation will result in the death of thousands of allergy sufferers in our country and trigger the occurrence of allergy in healthy people.”
I had supported an idea of animal testing for 10 years because of my moral blindness and devotion to the scientific point of view (I found it the most correct and pervasive one). On the one hand, I understood that these animals deserved a better fate and not such a tragic death. On the other hand, I morally justified all measures aimed to improve the state of human health and give human organism new possibilities. How blind I was! Today I understand that a blind devotion to science is dangerous. For example, Nazis physicians also performed diabolic experiments on people in favor of science. Their achievements gave rise to reproductive medicine and treatment of a wide range of diseases, but the price people paid for it was too high. Today I understand that investment in the development of science bears more fruit than horrible experiments with the weak scientific base.
Vivisection: good or bad?
My delusion ended when I saw the death of the poisoned puppy with my own eyes. It was a moment of revelation. I realized that thousands of animals die in the agony for our benefit. It our health worth the suffering of these creatures? Is vivisection the only way to test our pills and household chemicals? Probably no.
This incident made me ponder on the ethical side of the problem. The quick development of information technologies since the beginning of the 2000s gave humanity the hope to find the bloodless ways of resolving such problems. Due to the modern innovative technologies, it became possible to create the artificial version of the organism of animals and test chemicals in this way.
Today I can proudly say that I am a person who has to courage to admit the mistakes and start a new life with new principles. From an advocate of animal testing, I turned into the supporter of an ethical approach to science. Animals have the right to live without being sacrificed in the favor of science.
