No Compromise: The Policy of the Dr Hadwen Anti-Vivisection Memorial Unit

 

by Henry Turtle

 

 

Dr Walter Robert Hadwen (1854-1932), a campaigning anti-vaccinationist and anti-vivisectionist medical doctor, published in 1914 a statement of policy in the periodical of an anti-vivisection society which he led. The policy of the Dr Hadwen Anti-vivisection Memorial Unit is based on the statement in the belief that it is still relevant and offers a realistic approach to the aim of abolition of vivisection. We reproduce the text of his statement in full below.

 

“Our agitation is stirring up the enemy to offers of compromise, as we have all along prophesied would be the case. The Lancet, in a leading article in its issue of July 4, makes the following pronouncement:

 

‘There is one comparatively unimportant branch of vivisection in which restriction, or at least limitation, is in our view reasonable. We refer to the vivisections performed before physiology classes as demonstrations of the truth of the statements of their teachers and their text books. It is true enough that all such experiments are performed under anaesthesia, and that the animals upon which they are performed are not allowed to regain consciousness but are killed as soon as the demonstration is completed. Nevertheless, the case in favour of these acts of vivisection is less impregnable than in respect of vivisection to promote new researches and to acquire new knowledge; and we could contemplate without any misgiving the entire abandonment of dogs as subject for these demonstrations.’

 

This is an offer we would gladly accept as an instalment, as it represents the total abolition of one portion of the pernicious system against which we are fighting. It bears no relation to the illusory proposals of restriction made by the National Anti-Vivisection Society, which suggests the continuation of vivisection under the State regulation of Government inspectorship and anaesthetics, which we absolutely repudiate. The Lancet’s offer is a step forward; that of the NAVS is many steps backward.

 

Our Impregnable Position

 

We do not propose to introduce any Parliamentary Bill to carry this proposition of the Lancet into effect. Our case is so strong, and our position is so impregnable, that we can afford to make a direct frontal attack upon the whole line of the enemy’s position, including the corner where demonstrations before students are carried on. We are fighting against the whole system; it would be a waste of time and ammunition to pour it all upon one or more of the less important points of the battlements.

 

We have never supposed we should get all that we ask for at once.  We have frequently stated that the abolition of school demonstrations will be one of the first offers we shall receive. This has come true. The abolition of the use of curare will be another. In fact, it has been already officially suggested. The abolition of the use of dogs will be a further instalment. The abolition of the use of other of the higher animals will come one by one. The abolition of the whole system will inevitably follow.

 

This is the true step-by-step method by which abolition will be won. Ant-Slavery legislation was won in a similar fashion. Any proposal in the direction of our abolition policy, however slight it may be, we will welcome with open arms, and any and every proposal such as that of The Lancet shows that the cause of the enemy is weakening.

 

This is the position we have always assumed. We leave our foes to plant the white flag upon any particular part of their battlements while they concentrate for the time being on the remainder. Our policy is to fight on until every portion has been surrendered, and our own white flag waves over the ruins.

 

The fight we are waging is against vivisection itself. Vivisection in every department, whether in vivisection demonstrations before students, in the use of the vile drug curare, in the use of dogs, cats, monkeys or horses, or in torturing guinea-pigs, rabbit, rats, mice or birds. We decline for our part to occupy the public mind with any side issue, whether it be in differences in detail, differences in drugs, or differences in animals. We focus every gun on vivisection wherever it may exist, however it many be conducted, or whatever it may be practised upon.

 

No Offer of Compromise

 

We demand the abolition of vivisection, nothing more, nothing less. Vivisection of every description, whether cutting, maiming, baking, freezing, poisoning, diseasing, inoculating, crushing or any method of scientific experimentation that the imagination of the vivisector may devise. But we will accept from the enemy the surrender of any portion of their ramparts, readily, willingly, and we are glad that the proposal of surrender has begun.

 

But what we will not do, and what we decline to support, is the insincere work of strengthening those ramparts by approaching the Government of this country with proposals that the enemy may continue in their strongholds and pursue their villainous work if only that work is carried on under the supervision of interested Government inspectors who shall constitute themselves responsible for the innocency of the complicated and revolting experiments upon speechless animals. This is a policy which we declare to be an act of treachery towards our dumb friends, and we make no scruple in denouncing it by all the force that we can bring to bear upon a plain and uncompromising issue.

 

In practical politics we know no difference between painful and painless vivisection. The system itself is as brutal and degrading as it is unscientific and useless, and whilst we are ready to receive any and every offer of amelioration that is worth acceptance, we spurn the bogus proposals of restriction wrapped up in mighty vested interest of increased inspectorship that are a discredit to a noble cause.”

 

- W R Hadwen, from the Abolitionist, August 1, 1914.

 

If you believe with us that animal experimentation, or vivisection, should be abolished by law deal directly with your local Member of Parliament whose salary you pay and whose name can be found by calling the House of Commons Information line on 020 7219 4272.

 

Politicians, when approached by their constituents concerned about the vivisection question, may avail themselves of several ploys to fend them off. In the light of Dr Hadwen’s views we would draw attention to some of their favourite ploys, which are “controls”, “alternatives”, and a Royal Commission.

 

“...the State regulation of Government inspectorship...” - W R Hadwen

 

“Animal inspectors - Twelve new inspectors are to be appointed over three years to enforce the law on the treatment of animals that are used for scientific research, the Home Office Minister, Mike o’ Brien, announced in a written Commons reply yesterday. This will increase the number of inspectors to 33.” - From ‘Parliament in Brief’, Times, 23 March 2001.

 

* Inspectors are meant to ensure that the much vaunted “controls” on experiments in laboratories are adhered to, but as secrecy is built into the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, there is no reason to believe the assurances of vivisectors or of the inspectors that the “controls” are working.

 

The expose of Prof Wilhelm Feldberg at the National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill, London, or the revelation of abuses at Huntingdon Life Sciences, show that the “controls” are a smoke-screen, while vivisection, the biggest abuse of all, overshadowing incidental or peripheral abuses of regulations, continues unabated.

 

“...the true step-by-step method...” - W R Hadwen

 

* The search for “alternatives” to animal experiments and funds or trusts for “humane research” set up to seek them are another distraction from the aim of fighting vivisection and divert resources elsewhere that should be used in that fight. Since “the whole system is as brutal and degrading as it is unscientific and useless”, the only genuine alternative to it is its abolition by law.

 

* Calls for a Royal Commission to be set up to inquire into vivisection or for other inquiries to be set up to examine particular abuses of regulations concerning the treatment of animals in laboratories may in some cases be sincerely made, but they are a distraction from the main aim of attacking vivisection itself.

 

Dr Hadwen Ant-Vivisection Memorial Unit