The Pain of Animals - Essay Example

Summary of "The Pain of Animals" by David Suzuki Imagine sitting down in front of the television after dinner, turning on the news and watching a segment about an infant being kept in their crib for months on end, never picked up, never spoken to or never hugged and kissed - The parent, the baby's purported protectorate merely feeding him every four hours. We would be outraged, demanding their imprisonment at the very least. Suzuki in his article "The Pain of Animals" asks each of us to consider whether we, as humans and at the 'top of the food chain', have a moral and ethical obligation to preserve the rights of all animals.

His position is that humans tend to rationalize their behavior and in doing so justify our mistreatment of certain groups of animals with no thought or concern for their inherent right to life; rather in our selfishness we too often have little regard for their well-being and quality of life. In order to substantiate his position he drew parallels through various instances of how humans either assume animals do not have emotions and can not feel pain or disregard the truth believing the human race is somehow entitled to do as they please in the name of science or sport.

Drawing first on the experimentation of insects in the furthering of science Suzuki concedes that somehow that may be justifiable, but then further builds on the examples of experimentations on mice, rats, guinea pigs and other rodents to further both the medical and behavioral sciences and asks us to consider if this is the point at which the line should be drawn morally and ethically. In further defense of his position he talks about how humans are conditioned to have little disregard for the other animals with whom we share the planet.

Man at one point, hunted and fished to sustain his own and his family's lives. Somewhere we have gone beyond that. We hunt and fish now not just for survival, but for sport, sacrificing the lives of animals just for our own amusement and pleasure not out of necessity. The society in which we now live has bred this disregard into us. He recounted a tale from his youth in which he as a child bought a slingshot and practiced his aim until he was quite accurate and then 'went on the hunt'. He cornered a squirrel in a tree and continued pelting the terrified animal until reality slapped him in the face.

As Suzuki explained, "Suddenly, the squirrel began to cry - a piercing shriek of terror and anguish. That animal's wail shook me to the core and I was overwhelmed with horror and shame at what I was doing." He never touched a gun or slingshot again. Suzuki concluded his essay detailing the plight of hundreds of chimpanzees and other primates used for scientific experimentation, kept in inhumane conditions which deprive them of any quality of life. Animal protection advocates have filmed these conditions, and so moved Dr Jane Goodall that she toured one facility and was according to Suzuki stated "room after room was lined with small, bare cages, stacked one above the other, in which monkeys circled round and round and chimpanzees sat huddled, far gone in depression and despair.

"We as humans, and these our closest relatives, are not so very different. If we feel we need to destroy other life with no regard for the pain and anguish they endure for our so called 'progress', is human life really worth preserving We destroy their habitats then complain animals are encroaching on our cities and somehow justify, therefore, torturing them in the name of science is fine. They are in the way so let us capture them and experiment on them to cure AIDS and other disease. Although animals can not speak as can humans does not mean they are incapable of emotion and pain.

Sadly, we with our highly developed intellect should understand this. Unfortunately we do, we just do not care. Now I ask - who is really the animal I think I will go live with the Chimpanzees.