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I think it's ableist to use eradication of certain conditions (such as blindness) as a reason to approve of animal testing.
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I'm autistic and animals are not just an autistic special interest for me, but advocating for them is also a passion of mine.

There's this article defending the use of animals in medical testing. I've read others like it, with the gist of the argument being "Yes this is bad for animals and we don't outright deny that (but they do not state in blunt terms what they're really doing - that they are forcing these animals to undergo horrendous tortures that would never be approved of to do to humans, after which they are all killed.). BUT - this thing we made with the animal torture is so COOL and SHINY and LOOK at all the BUTTONS! Weee!"

Ok maybe not quite like that, but that's how it feels to read this kind of thing. It's always about curing or potentially eradicating disabilities that are perfectly fine to live with, according to many people with these conditions. What many disabled people hate more than their actual condition is the way they're treated by their society. I'm not saying all research to eliminate blindness, deafness, etc. is evil, but we don't need to do actual evil research in order to eliminate these conditions.
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https://fbresearch.org/opinion-in-defense-of-using-animals-in-lab-research

What I said to comment on the article is this (I'm not blind, I'm just telling this person they should consider the experiences of blind people, which I've learned from):

This is blatantly ableist. You are assuming like many sighted people do that a life with sight is better than a life without it, and assuming you've never experienced blindness, how would you know that? We don't need to torture animals to create some post-disability utopia that could never exist - because we'll always have some genetic abnormalities no matter what. So what we should be doing is learning to live with blind people and accommodate them and make them feel loved and welcome wherever any other person would be, not shunned or locked away for their conditions. Same with all other disabled people, such as myself being autistic. And it is torture these animals go through, and they all have to be killed at the end of it because nobody can adopt them after these experiments have mangled them up. "

Do you agree? I'd like to hear what blind people think because I'm not blind myself but I think if I were I'd feel insulted by this assumption that my life was so horrible and unimaginably depressing that it justifies these types of experiments. Just for the "hope" future generations wouldn't "suffer" from blindness? I don't think being blind is a good or bad thing per se. It's just a trait a person has or doesn't have, and a blind person can still live a good life and still be valuable to society, if their blindness is adequately accommodated and understood. Same with other disabilities, or at least I assume (but don't want to presume to know what all disabled people believe on this topic).

Since I'm autistic, we in the autistic community tend to fight against efforts to "cure" or "eliminate" autism. Not just because of the issue that being autistic people tend to prefer asking for social valuation and accommodation, not treatment or cures. But also because such efforts were almost always in the past tied with the radical right and eugenics.

But I understand those with other disabilities might differ?

Also I'd like to know how many of you would actually be willing to approve of the cruelty of animal testing to eradicate your physical trait or condition?

Or are these scientists speaking for (over) disabled people without asking them again?

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1 year ago