Search This Blog

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Care about animals? Vote Green

More than not over the years, my vote for state and national candidates have been aimed at keeping someone out of office rather than getting someone into office. I've generally had to hold my nose and vote for someone I found a little less repulsive than the other guy.

This year, I'm going to vote for someone for a change. I have no illusion about the likelihood that my candidate will win, but my nose is sore.

This year I'm voting for any and every Green candidate on the ballot. I think anyone who cares about people, the environment, and believes that animals should be treated respectfully ought to do so too.

Check out the Green Party Platform. Here's their position on animals; the Democrats and the Republicans don't even mention animals.

Ethical Treatment Of Animals

Cruelty to animals is repugnant and criminal. The mark of a humane and civilized society lies in how we treat the least protected among us. To extend rights to other sentient, living beings is our responsibility and a mark of our place among all of creation. We call for an intelligent, compassionate approach to the treatment of animals.

We reject the belief that our species is the center of creation, and that other life forms exist only for our use and enjoyment. Our species does not have the right to exploit and inflict violence on other creatures simply because we have the desire and power to do so. Our ethic upholds not only the value of biological diversity and the integrity and continuity of species, but also the value of individual lives and the interest of individual animals.

The Green Party advocates humane treatment of animals with the following policies:

1. Redirect the funds that are disbursed annually by the National Institutes of Health away from animal experiments and more towards direct health care, preventive medicine, and biomedical research using non-animal procedures such as clinical, epidemiological, and cell culture research.

2. Phase out the use of animals for consumer product testing, tobacco and alcohol testing, psychological testing, classroom demonstrations and dissections, weapons development and other military programs.

3. Mandate clear labeling of products to tell whether or not they have been tested on animals and if they contain any animal products or by-products.

4. Establish procedures to develop greater public scrutiny of all animal research. These should include the welfare of laboratory animals, and a halt to wasteful public funding of unnecessary research such as duplicative experiments.

5. End the abuse of animals, including farm animals, and strengthen our enforcement of existing laws.

6. Ban the use of goods produced from exotic or endangered animals.

7. Prohibit large scale commercial breeding facilities, such as "puppy mills," because of the massive suffering, overpopulation, and ill health such facilities produce.

8. Subsidize spay and neuter clinics to combat the ever-worsening pet overpopulation problem that results in the killing of millions of animals every year. Where unwanted companion animals are being killed in shelters, we advocate mandatory spay and neuter laws.

9. Ban the exploitation of animals in violent entertainment and sports.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't understand. Doesn't the Green party advocate the population going vegan? Is the abolition of medical research at the top of its priorities instead?

Anonymous said...

What Green means to one can be different to another:
Recycling – Paper, Cans, bottles and many other variables……
Protecting Environment - Cleaner Air, Cleaner Water, Planting More Trees and many other variables...
Food & Diet - Organic, better food in our public schools, less fast food and many other variables.....
Health - Exercise, stop smoking, and maintain healthy weight and many other variables....
Animals - More protection, prevents extinction, stop cruelty, not used in entertainment, stop egregious animal research, and many- many- many other variables...
You base your interpretation on how you read into what the blog reads. Your view can make some people not want to read the blog because you make it appear like many scientists it's about miss guiding the public before they even have a chance to review and decide for themselves...
You immediately drew the attention away from this blog and focused it onto the abolition of medical research… I’d like to give an example if I may - If animal research had been abolished 40+ years ago over 17,000,000 people might be alive that died of Hepatitis because the research on Chimpanzees decades later have yield no cure. All that time wasted, chimpanzees suffering living in cages, people still died and for what? And why might those people still be alive in case you are wondering? If there had been a change implemented focusing out money more towards alternatives a cure may have been discovered. Now we will never know for sure……..How sad :(

Sincerely Mimi