Everyone has heard about animal testing. Whether they have participated in being for or against it, or from the news, it’s reached them. This year, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico decided to send 186 chimps to a Primate Research Center in San Antonio, Texas. A lot of controversy has been brought up over this matter. All of the chimpanzees have been used for medical testing for years. People argue that they have the right to be sent to a sanctuary and not be tested on more. On the other hand, the San Antonio facility is very similar to their current home, and the testing would be just drawing blood samples and taking a bit of liver with teeny tiny needles. The article ends with a quote from Ajit Varki, a biochemist at the University of California in San Diego. He says, “We should be able to with chimps what we do with humans.”
I don’t agree with animal testing. I never have, and I never will. In what Mr. Varki says at the end of the article bothers me. If you look what humans have done to others over our entire history, it’s not pretty. What I interpret from Varki’s statement is that it’s okay to burn chimps alive or slice their faces up; that it’s okay to poison them and remove their limbs while they are still conscious and breathing. It disgusts me, what humans have the ability to do. Worse, we are trying to make it okay to do on a species that is so similar to ours and haven’t done anything to us. I don’t agree with the governor of New Mexico, and I hope that we can find a better solution.
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