Thursday Blog: Week Six

As I continue to read Animal Liberation by Peter Singer I have been able to answer the majority of my essential questions. This is most likely due to the fact that the book was originally published in 1975 and is said to be the book which started the animal rights movement. This book since its original publication has been revised to include new issues arising and also to include any improvements in the treatment of animals.

 

Some of the book covers on this book throughout the years

The first essential question which I was able to answer was my question, what are animal rights. From even only the first few chapters Peter Singer makes his opinion on animal rights known. Much like the last book I read Singer also compares animal rights to human rights which makes the concept much easier to understand. At one point he says, "we would be on shaky ground if we were to demand equality for blacks, women, and other groups of oppressed humans while denying equal consideration to non-humans" (Singer 3). Adding the comparison between animals and oppressed groups gives me a lot of insight as to what animal rights actually are and what rights they deserve. Finding out about the oppression of animals led me to discover the organization below that works towards ending animal oppression.

                                                                                                 SURGE was Founded in 2016, Surge is a grassroots animal rights organization determined to create a world where compassion towards all non-human animals is the norm. Our aim is to spread awareness through large-scale campaigns, filmmaking and investigative work. Surge is committed to positive community building, teamwork and the abolition of animal use. Our vision is a world in which all animals are free from oppression and violence. (surgeactivism.com)

This book has begun to answer my question, are there any alternatives to animal testing. In the second chapter, they describe a “synthetic material called Eytex as a replacement for the Draize test” (Singer 59). The Draize eye test is a test where usually cosmetics are placed in the eye of animals such as rabbits and rodents. This is merely one example of an alternative way to test products that do not include animals.

angelfire.com

Eyetex
Eyetex uses a vegetable protein to mimic reactions of the cornea to a substance. This is an effective eye irritancy test that can replace the Draize eye irritancy test.
Testskin
Human skin grown in a sterile plastic bag is used to test for potentially harmful reactions.
Ames Test
A test culture is made of Salmonella bacteria and activating enzymes, along with the chemical to be tested. This method is extremely efficient at identifying carcinogens. In testing, it detected 90% of carcinogens and 88% of non-carcinogens. These numbers are impressively high compared to animal testing.

Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation. The Bodley Head, 2015.