World Month for Laboratory Animals

April is the month that has been dedicated to the fight against the use of animals in scientific research and experimentation. It culminates, on 24th, in World Day for animals in laboratories. Every year there are demonstrations throughout the UK and the world to commemorate this day aand to remember all those sentient beings who have suffered and died in the last year – and a reminder of why we fight to end it.

This year will be a huge march through London On Saturday 25 April with speeches from a wide variety of abolitionists. Such a gathering has not been seen in nearly a decade and is a chance for us to show the Government that animal torture is not something they can ignore or try to sweep under the carpet anymore.

So why is such a big fuss made about laboratory animals when so many more are killed by the meat industry every year?

Well, every year there are over 3 million animal experiments carried out in British laboratories. That’s 8000 animal experiments every single day and this doesn’t include the thousands of animals that died in the breeding facilities or who were surplus to requirement. These experiments are carried out on non human primates, dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, mice, horses, sheep, pigs, cattle, fish, birds and amphibians. No animal is safe from the knives and experiments of vivisectors. Two thirds of the animal experiments that occur in this country are carried out with no anaesthetic. Defenders of animal research claim that this is because many of the procedures are simple ones, such as taking blood and therefore giving anaesthetics would be inappropriate. But what they fail to mention is the other types of invasive research, such as brain experiments, that are carried out with no pain relief because it would ‘interfere’ with the results.

Some animal experiments go on for years with the animals having unpleasant and painful procedures carried out on them every day. These procedures can include being injected, having substances forced down their throats into their stomachs, being forced to inhale gases and fumes, being trained to do certain tasks and then having different parts of their brains damaged to see how this effects what they have learnt. It includes trying to give them human diseases and then trying to cure them of them and so many other methods of tormenting animals than could be listed here.

The suffering all of these experiments cause to animals is astronomical, to creatures we know feel pain and suffer both physically and psychologically. In fact animal researchers do things to animals that would be considered torture if it was done to people, but it is legal because animals are considered as being worth less than people and therefore disposable. In Germany in the 1940’s the Nazis considered Jews, gypsies and the disabled to be worth less than they were and used this reasoning to allow them to experiment on those they’d imprisoned in the concentration camps. Two hundred years ago white Europeans considered Africans to be worth less than they were and used this to justify enslaving them. Bullies and opportunists will always pick on those who are unable to defend themselves while trying to justify what they do. But there is no justification for deliberate torture or for the abuse of any non-consenting individual.

Despite its manifesto promises to see the elimination of the use of animals in experiments, the numbers used have actually increased year in year out, with the exception of 200-2001, since the Labour Party came to power. This is why compassionate individuals are fighting to end this foul abuse of animals themselves.

Just think of what thousands of animals are going through right now, imprisoned in tiny cages barely big enough for them to turn around in, in conditions that would shame even the worst zoo. The young snatched away from their mothers as soon as they are considered useful, to be terrified just of being handled, let alone experimented on. The only thing these animals have to look forward to is death, which will finally relieve them of their torment.

Is giving up a bit of your time to try to help them really too much to ask?

If you would like to do more to help stop animal experimentation then join our demonstrations - together we can make a difference.