Propaganda on animal testing in Mauritius: “a monkey or your child?”
Mauritian primate breeders are provoking fear and selfishness in shameful propaganda in favour of animal testing.
Breeders of Mauritian primates for laboratories have this week published shameful propaganda in the Le Défi Plus newspaper. In this fake “ Consent Form for Medical Treatment ”, the public thus had the choice between recognising “ the importance ” and character of the “ necessary sacrifice ” of experimenting on animals, or giving up “ known medical treatments ”, “ cutting-edge treatments capable of saving millions of lives worldwide ” that involved testing on primates. As for the monkeys and what they will endure here, who cares? Certainly not the Cyno Breeders Association. One Voice’s critical analysis.
With Air France having stopped transporting primates and the shocking revelations on laboratory practices, both in Mauritius and in France, the animal testing industry feels that change is coming. For more than a century, when it considers itself sufficiently threatened to give up on any rational ethical discussion, it falls back on fear: “a dog or your child?”
150 years of appealing to selfishness
Reading such outrageous claims, we can see that its defence has not changed much. Since 1884, its “invariable” tactic was reported on as follows by Paul Viguier*:
«We are launching(…), in the form of impartial assessments, statements of medical discoveries that are credited with vivisection, and which are likely to pique the fierce egoism of “everyone” who is unwell, or who feels capable of becoming unwell. — From there to concluding that the torture of forty thousand dogs is nothing compared to the relief of a single patient, there is only one step: and this step is left to the frightened public to take. — If necessary, if they hesitate, we help them.»Paul Viguier, 1884
Today, the public is no longer hesitant: the detailed opinions published by Ipsos and One Voice in spring 2023 revealed that in France, almost eight in ten adults are opposed to animal testing. And the situation is the same throughout the world. This is how the appeal to fear takes over…
Fear is never advised
So, a monkey or your child? This is not a new question, and it has already received a clear answer for more than one hundred years**:
«To save my child, I should, very possibly, be prepared to vivisect the honourable Member who asked [that question], but that would hardly be accepted as proof that I was morally right in so doing.»G. G. Greenwood, 1913
Even for those who do not categorically refuse these practices, if an ethical debate must take place, it should still be done in a rational way, without being influenced by fear which all too often causes discrimination and fundamental injustice.
The fight is not over
The good news? If Mauritian breeders have come to this conclusion, it is because testing on primates is starting to disappear. This is a disappearance that will not upset many people! But the fight is not over. This propaganda, which calls on each person’s egoism, is dangerous.
To help us put an end to these horrors, you can sign our petitions for the closure of NeuroSpin and for stopping the importation and use of macaques.
*Cited by François-Victor Foveau de Courmelles in La Vivisection: erreurs et abus [Vivisection: errors and misuse] (1912), p.36.
**Cited by A.W.H. Bates in Anti-Vivisection and the Profession of Medicine in Britain: A Social History (2017), p.148.
Translated from the French by Joely Justice