Re:Biomedical companies bleed 500k horseshoe crabs a year
by woodruffw on Monday April 17, 2017 @12:17PM
(#14132068)
Pain might be one consideration for an ethical argument against the status quo, but there are plenty of others:
* Environmental - Are we diminishing the horseshoe crab population in a way that'll adversely affect the environment?
* Sustainability - Will our current methods be able to supply indefinitely increasing demand for horseshoe crab blood?
* Practicality - Are we using a natural resource as a way to avoid a more responsible or practical engineered solution (compare: whale oil)?
I don't claim a satisfactory answer to any of these (I just don't know enough about horseshoe crabs), but a "yes" for any of them represents a plausible ethical concern.
* Environmental - Are we diminishing the horseshoe crab population in a way that'll adversely affect the environment?
* Sustainability - Will our current methods be able to supply indefinitely increasing demand for horseshoe crab blood?
* Practicality - Are we using a natural resource as a way to avoid a more responsible or practical engineered solution (compare: whale oil)?
I don't claim a satisfactory answer to any of these (I just don't know enough about horseshoe crabs), but a "yes" for any of them represents a plausible ethical concern.