Christiaan Barnard Quotes

Vivisection is wrong because it is an abuse of man's power over the helpless, involving pain and suffering. The name for this is cruelty, and cruelty is immoral, no matter what the reason for its introduction.

Of all the black crimes that humanity is committing against the great Creation, vivisection is the blackest.

You ask about my opinion on vivisection. I quite agree that it is justifiable for real investigations on physiology; but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity.

I watched as that kid died. In his last few seconds there was pure terror in his eyes. You can't do that. You can't do that to a person. I don't care what anybody tells me, I don't care how many people go crazy and die, I don't care if the whole shuck human race ends. Even if that was the only thing that had to happen to find the cure, I'd still be against it.

What I think about vivisection is that if people admit that they have the right to take or endanger the life of living beings for the benefit of many, there will be no limit to their cruelty.

I have no disagreement with the aims of anti-vivisectionists.

We ought not to treat living creatures like shoes or household belongings, which when worn with use we throw away.

Fear and pain and suffering is not OK for any being to feel intentionally at the hands of us.

Guinea pigs are practically synonymous with experiments. Lab rats have become the workhorses of modern medicine. Genetics owes a huge debt to the humble fruit fly. There's almost no branch of the life sciences, in fact, that hasn't leaned heavily on one animal or another.

Animals shouldn't suffer for the sake of beauty.

Those who experiment on animals should never be able to quiet their own conscience by telling themselves that these cruelties have a worthy aim.

Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character.

The medical argument for animal testing doesn't stand up. Even if it did, I don't think we should kill other species. We think we're so much better; I'm not sure we are. I tell people, We've beaten into submission every animal on the face of the Earth, so we are the clear winners of whatever battle is going on between the species. Couldn't we be generous? I really do think it's time to get nice. No need to keep beating up on them. I think we've got to show that we're kind.

At present scientists do not look for alternatives simply because they do not care enough about the animals they are using.

We manage to swallow flesh, only because we do not think of the cruel and sinful thing we do.

Life is no way to treat an animal.

I wish we all would get up and go into the labs and take the animals out or burn them down.

My biggest problem with modernity may lie in the growing separation of the ethical and the legal

There are barbarians who seize this dog, who so prodigiously surpasses man in friendship, and nail him down to a table, and dissect him alive to show you the mezaraic veins... Answer me, Machinist, has Nature really arranged all the springs of feeling in this animal to the end that he might not feel? Has he nerves that he may be incapable of suffering?

. . . Now you see . . . they' re not fit for humans . . ." "Put them on me.

Cats have nine lives. Makes them ideal for experimentation.

The Anti-Vivisector does not deny that physiologists must make experiments and even take chances with new methods. He says that they must not seek knowledge by criminal methods, just as they must not make money by criminal methods. He does not object to Galileo dropping cannon balls from the top of the leaning tower of Pisa; but he would object to shoving off two dogs or American tourists.

Vegetarians are people who cannot hear tomatos screaming.

Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust.

The least I can do is speak out for the hundreds of chimpanzees who, right now, sit hunched, miserable and without hope, staring out with dead eyes from their metal prisons. They cannot speak for themselves.