NAVS Reflection

This week, we were assigned to read an article titled Mice and Rats in Research by the NAVS organization One of the first things I noticed when I opened up the website was the logo. It was simply a white paw print(see above), but as simple as it was, I still found it emotionally stirring. So I asked myself, why was I so moved by a such a basic image. Most people have likely realized or have been told that a handprint is special since each one is unique. And individuality is partially what defines us as living organisms (at least we’d like to think so). The handprint, in a way, reminds us that we are all have individual thoughts and emotions; that we are not simply a mindless mechanism of some collective. So perhaps the reason that the paw print struck such a strong emotional chord for me is that it served as the animal equivalence of a hand, essentially emphasizing the idea that animals are conscious organisms who feel pain and happiness like we do.

          While this thought stayed with me for a while, it quickly got undercut once I began reading the actual content of the article. It ended the first paragraph by stating: “Nature did not intend for these animals to be standins for people, and it is not safe to assume that what occurs in rodents will predict what happens in people.” To me, it seemed as though the author made our own safety as the main appeal for decreased use of mice in labs. Is our compassion for animals, perhaps in particular rats, so weak that the organization is forced to make an appeal to self-interest instead of sympathy? As I reflected on the countless times that I watched experiments on animals in my psychology and science classes before recognizing that I had rarely felt any pity for those them before. As bleak as it may be, the most effective way for the author to argue for decreased use of mice and rats in their experiment may have been to appeal to our self-interest (especially since rodents are not normally seen as furry and lovable). During this whole time, I kept on thinking back to the logo of the paw, which now seemed like a naïve attempt to motivate self-serving people like me.