And on another note...
The fucking Grand National.
I am sure that I will make myself very unpopular here, but is this going to come to an end? Yes, let us put an end to fox hunting and bear baiting - after all those are cruel sports that result in fatalities for human recreation and entertainment.
But keep horse racing. Because pushing an animal round a race course and risking its life is completely different and not cruel in the slightest, especially if you make a little money out of it too. Ok, so the Grand National only has eighty recorded fatalities, but surely that's 80 too many right?
Animal rights protesters camp outside my University every thursday and everytime I walk past them I get hit by the guilt that yes, the industry I am entering (mainly biochemistry) does involve animal testing, and yes, I do sometimes have the horrible realisation that someday I myself might be put in a position where I have to do similar things myself. Which I'm sure probably makes me a hypocrite for not endorsing animal racing as I am protesting against one form of cruelty, and agreeing (regrettably) with another. So I'm by no means perfect, whiter than white or any of the above. However, I have also met people who will sit there and lecture me on how its wrong for me to even consider animal testing, and in their same breath they will admit that they happily go to Greyhound/Horse races. If we're fighting for equal rights for animals, surely the first port of call is to stop exploiting them for entertainment purposes? In the mean time we can then work on tissue cultures that someday might allow us to grow complete artificial systems with which to test drugs, instead of using animals instead.
It's just a thought.
Siany
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