GENETIC ENGINEERING: PLAYING GOD?

Genetic Engineering on only come about when scientists realise the animals’ animals and plants is
right to live a normal, healthy life, without man UNNATURAL and
tampering with their genes. UNETHICAL. The ethic of pursuing knowledge is considered sufficient justification for inflicting agony on those who are placed beyond the limits of genuine moral concern. Our sphere of moral concern is far wider than that ALTERNATIVESs Casteists, but so long as there are sentient beings outside it, it is not wide enough. The scientific world today has the power to alter the very fabric of nature, by transferring characteristics not only between plants, but cross-altering animals, plants and human beings. Genetic Engineering which is without Ethical limitation has a serious impact on the environment of animals, plants and humans. It violates our relationship with the natural world.

Much of what is happening in the field of Genetic Engineering food is driven by the lust for profit. Genetic Engineering at lengths such as these, are a symbol of consumerism gone berserk. Is it really fair that animals and their environment face the brunt of our insatiable curiosity? Genetic Engineering is without ethical limitation and has a serious impact on the environment and our relationship with Nature. Genetic Engineering research is most often
dresses, bags and shoes; and carried out on animals such as pigs, mice, sheep, farm animals, fish and sometimes even on some plants such as the tomato, tobacco and corn.

Vegetarians around the world are seriously wondering whether the food they are eating is actually vegetarian. If the idea of reversing the experiment (substitute the mice with humans) came about, people would call it blasphemous! No thought for the animals is involved. The extent to which these experiments will go is uncertain. A change will only come about when scientists realise the animals’ right to live a normal, healthy life, without man tampering with their genes.

Ivory from elephants and from marine mammals such as whales, walruses and narwhals are often carved into figurines, curious or jewellery.

Killing an elephant is forbidden but the ivory collector can take the tusks of a dead elephant. So he kills it by:

Throwing giant thumbtacks across the elephant’s path which get embedded in the foot, cause gangrene and then slow death.

Or, he smears the jackfruit on the tree with poison and waits for the elephant to eat its favourite fruit.

Or, the poachers make use of electric poles to lay bare wires along a river side track frequently travelled by elephants. Then he strips the carcass.

ALTERNATIVES

There are varieties of impressive harmless natural and man made artefacts available for display.

FUR... YOU CAN LIVE WITHOUT IT.THEY CANNOT.

Next to food, Fur is probably the main reason for which animals are killed in great numbers, and in many instances in a far more ‘terrible’ manner than food animals. While both meat and fur can be dismissed as unnecessary for our survival, one may excuse those who still depend on the need for meat in their diet on the grounds of thoughtless slavery to tradition and ignorance of facts. The use of fur satisfy only vanity, a very insensitive desire for physical luxury, NOT A ‘NEED’ in any sense of the word.

Fur from the wild is obtained illegally and through terribly cruel trapping methods. Traps and snares are laid in forest areas only to be checked days or weeks later. Meanwhile the trapped creature caught in the powerful jaws of the neck with tailored day suits. At trap (may not even be a fur bearing animal in which case it is ‘trash’ for the trapper) suffers intense pain, broken bones, terror, starvation, exposure to elements, etc. often resulting in hideously chewing its own trapped limb in a bid to escape.

Fur obtained from ‘farms’ or ‘ranches’ as they are termed are undoubtedly also products of cruelty. The animals are specially bred only to be killed through strangulation, gas or electrocution.

Animals on fur farms live their short lives in wire-mesh cages, victims of stress, fear, and self-mutilation. In the interest of profit, animals are dispatched by the cheapest methods possible, which are usually also the most crude and cruel e.g. anal electrocution, poisoning with weed killer, and suffocation.

Some farm raised species are Mink, Fox, Chinchilla, Rabbits, Beavers etc.