阅读与写作-议论文赏析与写作.docVIP

PAGE PAGE 1 Animals or children? — A scientists choice 1 I am the enemy! I am one of those cursed, cruel physician scientists involved in animal research. These rumors sting, for I have never thought of myself as an evil person. I became a childrens doctor because of my love for children and my supreme desire to keep them healthy. During medical school and residency, I saw many children die of cancer and bloodshed from injury — circumstances against which medicine has made great progress but still has a long way to go. More importantly, I also saw children healthy thanks to advances in medical science such as infant breathing support, powerful new medicines and surgical techniques and the entire field of organ transplantation. My desire to tip the scales in favor of healthy, happy children drew me to medical research. 2 My accusers have twisted the truth into a fable and cast me as the devil. They claim that I have no moral compass, that I torture innocent animals for the sole purpose of career advancement, and that my experiments have no relevance to medicine. Meanwhile, an uncaring public barely watches, convinced that the issue has no significance, and publicity-conscious senators and politicians increasingly give way to the lobbying of animal rights activists. 3 We, in medical research, have also been unbelievably uncaring. We have allowed the most extreme animal rights protesters to creep in and frame the issue as one of animal fraud and hatred. We have persisted in our belief that a knowledgeable public would consent to the importance of animal research for public health. Perhaps we have been mistaken in not responding to the emotional tone of the argument. Perhaps we should have responded to those sad slogans and posters of animals by waving equally sad posters of children dying of cancer or external wounds. 4 In the animal rights forum, much is made of the volume of pain these animals experience in the name of medical science. Activists deny that