Poor vivisected doggy
Sir: "For the diehard and unconvincible third group of anti-vivisectionists,". writes John Linklater (November 3), " the way will remain hard indeed. To remain in perfect good faith she must
There's no telling whether this bizarre grammatical trans-sexualism is a simple symptom of muddled thought. an appeal to prejudice or both. The last seems likeliest: it might also explain why Dr Linklater thinks a ban on vivisection would come under the heading of " anti-discrimination Bills."
To Dr Linklater, the wish to spare pain to animals of all species is emotionalism. But he applies no such criticism to his own absolute and unargued assumption that human animals hold torture-rights over all other species. May I ask your unprejudiced readers to consult the symposium Animals, Men and Morals (Gollancz, 1971), where the case for the rights of all animals is argued, coolly and factually, by scientists, philosophers and authors? (But I must warn the prejudiced that five of the thirteen contributors are women, and declare an interest by confessing that they include me.) Dr Linklater rhetorically wonders whether anti-vivisectionists regret that not enough animals were sacrificed to give warning in advance of the dangers of thalidomide. He. would have been fairer if he had told your readers that the thalidomide question cuts both ways. According to the foreword by the late Lord Dowding to John Vyvyan's In Pity and in Anger, a warning was given by a scientist who tested the drug by humane techniques; tragically, the warning was ignored and the results of inhumane tests were trusted instead.
Dr Linklater suggests.that only if the RSPCA endorsed vivisection would it become open to the Government to give funds to FRAME. This id bargaining in Wonderland, just as his attempt to turn various pro-animal groups against one another is power politics in Wonderland. It is perfectly open to the Government now to give funds alike to FRAME, which collects and collates information about humane techniques, and to the NAVS's Dowding Fund, which subsidises scientists who use them. All British experiments on animals are permitted, and about a quarter of them are imposed, by statute. This puts the strongest moral obligation on Parliament to spend public money on promoting the humane alternatives that already exist and on urgently and actively searching for new ones.
Brigid Brophy 3/185 Old Brompton Road, London SW5
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