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Animal Rights History Timeline » [1837-1901] Victorian Age » Rev. Wilfrid Lescher

Reverend Wilfrid Lescher

Why I Oppose Vivisection

Animals' Friend Magazine

[1896-Sep] Rev. Wilfrid Lescher, "Why I Oppose Vivisection, No. XIV," Animals' Friend [London:1894-?] 2 (1896 Sep): 215-6; Online at Animal Rights History, 2003.

Rev. Wilfrid Lescher in "Why I Oppose Vivisection," argues that since "English law says that it is wrong to cut up animals alive… allow[ing] no excuse from the butcher, from the fishmonger, from the farmer" that it is only when the exception allowed by The Act against Cruelty to Animals which permits vivisection by license is "abolished" that "the theory of law will regain its completeness."

It is strange that in all the discussions our opponents call animals anything but what they are. They are 'mere things'; they are 'not men,' 'not Christians,' etc. But what are they? They are animals. An animal is not a thing, meaning wood or a plant. It is a conscious living being. It has a distinct place of its own marked out by the great Creator's hand.

In English law animals have legal rights corresponding to a reality embraced by every sound mind. They have rights therefore—animal rights.

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WHY I OPPOSE VIVISECTION.
NO. XIV. BY REV. WILFRID LESCHER.

I AM opposed to vivisection because it is wrong. It is wrong because it is cruel, and because it educates people in cruelty and teaches them to be cruel without seeming to be cruel, which I call the extreme of cruelty. Cruelty to animals is not so bad as cruelty to man, nor is vivisection done to animals wrong as if done to man. Nevertheless it is wrong. No one has ever said it was right, except as a bare necessity.

Because I cannot fix the exact amount and degree of wrongness in it, am I therefore prevented from opposing vivisection ? Am I to pause and turn aside and utter no protest against atrocities because I cannot define what sin there is in them ? My common sense tells me that this is the tyranny of pedants. My experience tells me that it is a subterfuge to gain time and hide what is going on. Vivisectionists throw dust in our eyes by raising theological discussions.

Vivisection is wrong by the English law. The Act against Cruelty to Animals included vivisection, which was only allowed afterwards by licence, that is, as an exception to the law. The English law says that it is wrong to cut up animals alive. It allows no excuse from the butcher, from the fishmonger, from the farmer. It reluctantly allows it to, perhaps, a hundred or so of the thirty millions of the population, and under stringent conditions and anæsthetics.

This is the theory of the law. In that theory vivisection is clearly wrong, considered as an established practice. Are we then to be abused because we follow this theory of the law ? A right law is a rule of conscience. If anyone asks me if vivisection is wrong I am content to answer, Yes, because the law says it. Why should I separate myself from the humane voice, of my countrymen ? Why should I seek to excuse a practice which they fear and detest in itself and for its influence upon their homes ? I will only say that if I am attacked the nation is attacked. When fully roused as to what goes on, the nation will know how to vindicate their humane and tender feelings which have ever been the glory of England, however obscured they may have been from time to time. I am satisfied then with this theory of the law. I say theory. The carrying out of the law is another matter. Every citizen is formed by the laws, as Aristotle remarks. I submit myself to my country's laws and to be taught by them as every citizen should. In these latter days we know that in some things law and religion are opposed, to the injury of States and persons. All the more then when the law is sound should we respect it as the form of duty. I have no sympathy with those who withdraw from the common air and universal opinion to form theories of their own, idle and fantastic, in favour of a miserable minority, for these private theories are no improvement on the common feeling. On the contrary they amaze and repel the average man, and would if successful, form a despotism dreadful to imagine. We then cannot be stigmatized as a party, for we are, and we are with, the great majority.

Vivisection then is the exception. I might argue on that point and ask should there be even an exception? But as my aim is practical and I want something done, I prefer to put aside or postpone that discussion. Let it be granted that there may be an exception in theory, I say that it must be for a time only, or else it becomes more than an exception, for a perpetual exception is impossible; only law is perpetual. Time then and a period being essential to exception, I say that the time for it to cease has come. The exception should be abolished. Vivisection has been tried and it must go. Then the theory of the law will regain its completeness. Then vivisectors will be subject to the law like everybody else. If they wish to vivisect let them do so to their hearts' content, at their own peril. Why should a butcher be prevented from a cruelty subservient to human appetite and strength, allowed to a scientific investigator on grounds of medical research? Let them stand on the same ground, equal before the law. It is hardly possible to avoid discussion of the abstract points. We have gained much ground. Vivisectionists are not so "cocksure" as they were. They have been forced to listen and to discuss. Certainly a good argument on our side is indispensable, but it should be carefully framed. I will add a few remarks that occur to my mind.

It is strange that in all the discussions our opponents call animals anything but what they are. They are "mere things"; they are "not men," "not Christians," etc. But what are they ? They are animals. An animal is not a thing, meaning wood or a plant. It is a conscious living being. It has a distinct place of its own marked out by the great Creator's hand. It is not the place of men; it is not the place of trees. It is the world of animals. Surely if the worlds of astronomy, of mathematics, of botany, etc., have their laws, it is right to think out and follow animal laws. Abstract discussion about sin, etc., is irrelevant. It is right to follow the right law, and wrong to follow the wrong. If the wrong is only a mistake, well a mistake in Numbers may bring ruin. He who violates etiquette does wrong, without question of sin. Granted that the mere etiquette of nature is violated by vivisection, will anyone deny its importance on such a point ? Not being trees, or herbs, or wood, or stone, animals have a treatment of their own, recognized in every country under the sun, and enforced in some codes under penalty with the consent of all. In the English law animals have legal rights corresponding to a reality embraced by every sound mind. They have rights therefore—animal rights. And they have duties too—animal duties. We train them and punish them, and they recognize their accountability to man by evident signs. The power of life and death over animals does not annul their rights and duties. Man has power even over his fellow man who has unquestioned rights in the highest sphere.

I hope these few remarks may help on the cause. I embraced it many years ago, and every day I rejoice at the opportunity of a word on the side of mercy in this cruel world.