Modern Vivi

Formulating theories and hypothesis, followed by experimentation in order to obtain data is an age-old scientific practice. Yes, experimenting has proven to produce a multitude of positive advances in research, but at what point do the benefits of these experiments expire from beneficial to horrendously array? Vivisection, “surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure”, is an example of data collection gone too far (Wikipedia). Operating on a living creature, with similar nervous system as humans have, creates a result of not only death, but awareness of pain and perception of undammed hurt.


While the experiment may indeed further medical knowledge or allow new familiarity with an aspect of the body, there is some point at which it is necessary to disallow such acts – this point is at vivisection. The practice of vivisection is “an inhumane, brutal procedure that has no place in a society that considers itself civilized” (555) and therefore ought to be seriously examined in and of itself in regards to morality and humanity. In agreement with Robert Titus, “ I respect the aims of the experiment[s], [but] I am revolted by the means” (555). As I previously mentioned, experimentation as a whole as tremendously accelerated and improved advances in medicine, which of course is an important venture, yet this by no means lends an excuse for the horrific means by which they are achieving these advances.

As brought up by Lewis Carroll in his “Some Popular Fallacies about Vivisection”, I can’t help but think of the humans that are experimenting on these creatures. Just as many humans would inflict pain upon another human in order to save the life of a child, it is possible that the experimenters are similarly imposing pain on another species in order to save their own. As cited by Carroll, Freemen wrote, “’the question is not as to the aggregate amount of suffering inflicted, but as to the moral character of the acts by which the suffering is inflicted” (544). Besides the few experimenters that perform vivisection due to possible sadistic tendencies, for most of the humans imposing this undeamed pain upon these innocent animals, “there probably never exists a point at which [they] will become numb to [the] sites that they must endure.


For now, vivisection exists solely with animal subjects, but as Carroll proposes, who is to say that there will never be a transition from animal to human subjects? Recently released movie, Shutter Island, involves this very idea – that humans become the subject of vivisection in order to advance the scientific knowledge of the human nervous system. “Humans view themselves as the elite species on the planet”, but if no action is taken to prevent it, vivisection on humans could rise, and then who will claim to be the elite?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdumGs1qoXM
View this link to see the trailer for Shutter Island
http://www.queeryouth.org.uk/community/index.php?act=ST&f=84&t=19718
http://media.photobucket.com/image/human%20vivisection/Trevor_N_Wood/vivisection.jpg


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivisection
http://dietoondie.com/2008/12/15/vivisection/