Dear member of the public,

No one wants to needlessly harm animals. No wants to do anything horrible, really—but we all also want to fix the world’s problems. There are people suffering from mental disorders like Schizophrenia or Alzheimer’s that would give the world to be ‘normal’. There are children who are dying from cancer far too young, parents who struggle to manage their special needs dependents, and youth who fight to want to live every day. There are hundreds of people who suffer from disorders or diseases that they honestly don’t deserve—and there are hundreds of animals that are in labs that are being used for testing.

So who deserves freedom more?

Animals in labs are subject to manipulation, but these manipulations range from simple ‘food reward’ tests to inserting devices to measure brain activity. Furthermore, these manipulations are tightly regulated and require very strict paperwork and I can assure you that no one—not even the most sadistic of scientists—would want to juggle the regulations involving animal research if they didn’t feel they had to. Another thing to consider is that these animals are kept safe and happy at other times. They are fed enough food, kept warm in properly incubated cages, and have many paid workers whose sole jobs are to ensure they are healthy and happy. If they happen to be part of a study that includes euthanasia, it is always done in the most humane way possible. So, having that in mind, is it truly better for an animal to battle for food, territory, and shelter every day of their lives in order to just survive (with the risk of dying every single day), rather than be pampered for all their lives and sent quietly and peacefully into death? Is it better to have bred these animals for lab purposes and given them comfortable lives, than to have them never live at all? Does it make it okay to search for a possible solution to thousands—perhaps millions—of people’s diseases if the animals have short lives, even if they are kept comfortable for most of it?

These are things that scientists have to think about all the time. We must consider what research is important in the (albeit, messy) path towards a solution for human diseases—but we also have to think about the animals. It is rather overly simple to just say ‘animal research is improving life for humans’ (because sometimes it’s not) and equally untrue to say ‘animal research is unnecessary because humans are overpopulating the world anyway’ and ‘animal research is useless because we can’t directly extend its conclusions to humans’. The fact is, there will always be disease, and struggle, and death—for both sides. The question as to which life is valued more (animal or human), I feel, is rather silly because the issue is not so black-and-white. It is a dirty spectrum of grey.

I think when it comes down to it, where you decide to put your flag down and say “From this point forward, the spectrum is black!” is truly a personal decision. Are keeping animals in captivity wrong? What if those animals were bred to be pets and would live otherwise awful lives in the wilderness? Likewise, is it okay for animals to be used in research? What if those animals live perfect, comfortable lives up until the point of their euthanasia or experiment?

Personally, I would rather be the lab rat than the sewer rat. How about you?