Purchasing vaccines endorses animal cruelty

"Now consider that only 2.5 million animals die per year due to vaccine testing. [1] Vaccine testing account for less than .03% of the total chicken production in the US, and that assumes that every animal who dies in vaccine testing is a chicken. Knowing this, it is logically unsound to bring the cruelty of chicken farms into this debate and the reader should not consider them a valid point." Con So, the .03% don't matter at all because the number is small. That 2.5 million chicken's suffering is irrelevant to a discussion about animal cruelty? By that logic a lot of animal cruelty should be overlooked because the numbers are less than or equal to 2.5 million. So if a person arbitrarily decides to light a neighborhood cat on fire that is irrelevant because nine billion chickens are killed annually. Tell that to the cat and the people watching the cat burn. The cruelty of chicken farms is relevant to the debate, even if only a small portion of the nine billion chickens raised are used in vaccines and vaccine research. More to the point, the fertilized eggs don't appear out of thin air. There must be a mother and father chicken. The cruelty to the mother and father of each of those fertilized eggs must be accounted for. From merriam webster cruelty: " : a desire to cause others to suffer : the quality or state of being cruel : actions that cause suffering : an act or occurrence that causes suffering " merriam webster The first use of the word intent matters. The other two word usage intent doesn't matter. Therefore intent doesn't matter. In the example of being marooned on an island the action of hunting the animal is cruelty. Perhaps more importantly the intent is to kill and eat the animal. "However, his action is not cruel because it was not his ultimate goal to hurt the animal, but rather to survive." Con There is no way he could achieve his ultimate goal without the intermediate goal of hurting the animal. In other words to achieve the goal of survival a chain of goals or tasks must be accomplished. First he must find the animal. Next, he must perform the task or goal of hurting the animal. Then, he must kill the animal. Finally he must find a way to eat the animal. By your logic dog fighting, cock fighting, bull rodeo's, pigeon shoots are all justified cruelty. I like it. In fact you win Con. I completely agree with you. By those standards animal cruelty can always be justified. Therefore there is no such thing as animal cruelty. Good job. The intent of dog fighting arenas is to have fun and maybe make some money. So therefore, the cruelty is justified. Same with male chicken fights and bull rodeos. Just teasing you, but what exactly makes dog fighting unjustified animal cruelty and the example of the man marooned justified? Unless of course you seriously think dog fighting is justified animal cruelty. After all the intent is entertainment and not to cause suffering. "Consider another example in which someone's pet gets cancer and needs to be put down." Con Cancer sometimes goes into spontaneous remission. "The spontaneous healing of cancer is a phenomenon that has been observed for hundreds and thousands of years and after having been the subject of many controversies, it is now accepted as an indisputable fact." J Nat Sci Biol Med. 2011 Jan-Jun; 2(1): 43"49. doi:" 10.4103/0976-9668.82318 With no way to predict the future a mercy killing or euthanasia in this circumstance thus such a deed may result in animal cruelty. Con contends that vaccine research is justified cruelty and thus not cruelty. "Understanding this, I am arguing that vaccine research is not cruel. Even though animals will die and likely suffer, the ultimate goal is not to cause this suffering, but rather to create medicines that protect humans against disease." Again how is this action of vaccine research justified and pigeon shootings not? The ultimate goal of pigeon shooting to raise money. Therefore either both vaccine research and pigeon shooting are justified or neither are. "Enemy drone shot down over Inhofe fundraiser" Elise Viebeck "Sen. Jim Inhofe on Tuesday for a fundraiser he held earlier this month in his home state of Oklahoma in which live pigeons were thrown into the air for participants to shoot out of the sky."foxnews.com "Vaccines given to infants and young children over the past two decades will prevent 322 million illnesses, 21 million hospitalizations and 732,000 deaths over the course of their lifetimes, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Vaccines also will have saved $295 billion in direct costs, such as medical expenses, and a total of more than $1.3 trillion in societal costs over that time" Liz Szabo, USA TODAY The means justify the ends? That killing animals and making them suffer is justified because it saves human lives and money. Despite the fact that there may be more humane ways of raising chickens. They should be overlooked in the name of profit margins? Chickens have genetic differences from humans. Aside from any moral issues, there are some within the scientific community that contend that animal testing is obsolete and inefficient. "The advantages of this new approach would be considerable: a substantial reduction in testing costs and time a drastic drop in the number of animals used in testing the ability to test a far greater number of chemicals and other substances a grounding of safety decisions in human biology rather than in how guinea pigs, rats, and other animals react under highly artificial conditions" humanesociety.org Next, there is the issue of religious objection to animal cruelty. We live in a democracy and even if we 100% disagree with these objections people who hold this view still get a vote and are protected under the bill of rights. "Amendment I Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." http://billofrightsinstitute.org... Do the ends still justify the means after religious objections? Lets assume vaccines do work. Yet, do we really need them? Vaccines haven't been around all that long. There are other ways to strengthen the immune system. Its been scientifically proven that smoking reduces immune system function and good diet increases immune function. Therefore, like antibiotics are I argue that vaccines are overused. By relying too heavily upon vaccines we have ignored other ways to booster our immune system. "Nicotine, which is one of the main constituents of cigarette smoke, suppresses the immune system" Nat Rev Immunol. 2002 May;2(5):372-7. "Moreover, a close link between specific immune activation and atherosclerosis has been well established, suggesting that fat can directly trigger immune responses. This review discusses the role of fat as "a matter of disturbance for the immune system" with a focus on hepatic steatosis." "All these factors indicate that obesity exerts negative effects upon the immune system." Nutr Hosp. 2004 Nov-Dec;19(6):319-24. Conclusion, the suffering of chickens raised for animal vaccination matters. The cruelty in vaccine research causes suffering regardless of intent. The ends do not justify the means. Purchasing vaccines endorses animal cruelty. Thank you for reading. Good arguments. Bah I ran out of characters to post all my links. http://www.humanesociety.org... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...