Vivisection is on the Brink

From RFK to the UK, nations are committing to end animal experiments.

I'm not sure how I missed it. But shortly before the new year, Lara Trump, the wife of Eric Trump, and daughter-in-law of the President, did an interview with RFK, Jr. that might be the most significant interview of a national political figure in the history of animal rights. Let’s start by explaining who RFK is. As the head of the Department of Health and Human Services, he is the single most powerful person in the world of medical research. He controls a budget of literally tens of billions and, with one stroke of a pen, has the authority to end all federal funding of animal research.

And he just promised on national TV that he would do exactly that. Check it out yourself.

And RFK is not the only prominent figure to attack animal testing. Just a month earlier, the UK government announced that it was making plans to “phase out animal tests.” Indeed, across the globe—even in China—momentum is growing to end the use of animals in cruel experiments.

What does that mean for animal advocates?

The first and obvious lesson is that the time to move on vivisection is now. For nearly a century, leading activists and academics have recognized the importance of seizing political opportunities. The movement must seize this one while we can.

The second lesson is that economic power—or even medical need—are not sufficient to beat compelling narratives. The biomedical industry is, by all measures, far more significant than animal agriculture. And the case it has made for animal experimentation, even if exaggerated, is much stronger than the arguments for eating meat. Yet it is vivisection, and not animal agriculture, that is on the brink. This shows that good narratives are what matter, not demonstrations of economic viability or even biological need.

But I think the most important lesson is simply that we can win. No one would have thought, 20 years ago, when activists were going to prison for protesting vivisection, that the most powerful man in the industry would be condemning animal experiments in just a few years. And yet here we are. That should give us, not just hope, but confidence that we can accomplish so much more.