The forces of justice and progressivism are more active than they’ve ever been in response to the Republican state budget. But one issue that has received almost no mention is the assault on animals included in the ruling party’s agenda. Brenda recently posted an email from Ann Emerson discussing the possibility of the introduction of trapping, an absolutely barbaric practice, in Dane County parks.
And just when one is tempted to think this nightmare of a budget process couldn’t go on any longer, it does just that. The WSJ notes the following in an article discussing yet another complaint of animal abuse in UW laboratories:
The state Legislature’s budget committee last week approved a provision specifying “that current law provisions prohibiting crimes against animals would not apply to persons engaged in bona fide scientific research…”
Sandgren said the language is intended to clarify ambiguity in current law. But Rick Bogle, co-director of Alliance for Animals, said he believes the language is too far-reaching.
“Their argument, the way I read it, is the state should absolutely have no say in what goes on in the state university involving animals,” he said.
In other words, animals can now be tortured in any and all ways, without reprucussions. All that is needed is for this activity to be called “science.”
The UW, ranked a few years ago as “the worst animal laboratory in the country” by PETA, has a record of animal cruelty so unfathomable and extensive that it would make even the most hardened hunter uneasy. These experiments have included dogs, pigs and, of course, primates.
In practice, little is likely to change, since existing regulations are largely superfluous, anyway. But it’s worthwhile to reflect upon the fact that we are living in a state in which the government has just decided that the suffering and interests of non-human animals are irrelevant.
