Life
as a hare in the industrialized world is a tragic cliché. Pursued, eaten,
worn, turned into lucky key chains, used as test subjects in trials for
everything from cancer treatment to the effects of florescent dye in wacky
glow-in-the-dark dinosaur socks... bunnies are nature's perpetual victim. What
makes their demise especially brutal is that they're so inherently
vulnerable-adorable. It's like putting cuteness in a blender.
What's
the alternative, though? Should we begin dumping Johnson's Baby Shampoo into
toddlers' pried-open eyes to see how long it takes for them to fall out?
Are we to grow gourd-sized tumors in kidnapped homeless people to determine
whether a pill kills the disease or the whole dude?
For
most of us, the reason to affect other life falls somewhere between pleasure
and survival. If I can live without a thing that causes suffering, I will. On
the other hand, if my well-being depends on it―if I simply must wear
wacky glow-in-the-dark dinosaur socks to the paleontologists' annual
Halloween party―then look out, rabbits.
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