Project Proposal

For my final project, I will be writing about scientific testing on primates and my experience opposing this practice. I wanted to make this world a better place by fighting to eliminate the cruel and ineffective practice of keeping primates in cages for their entire lives so as to make them submit to invasive, harmful testing that is supposedly for the benefit of humans. The number of moral and ethical violations such a practice encounters are too long to even begin here. Besides such factors, what makes such testing so atrocious is that it is so widespread and that it has been going on for so long. The University of Wisconsin is home to one of the largest primate testing facilities in the nation; the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center. With my proximity to such testing, as well as my strong feelings about the issue, I decided to take action.

During my sophomore year, I was Associate Director of the WUD’s Society and Politics Committee. One of the benefits of this position was that I had the freedom and funds to create, from scratch, my own events that dealt with contemporary political and social issues. So I organized a public debate between UW scientist Dr. Paul Kaufman, and animal rights activist Rick Bogle. The process of dealing with my committee, the speakers, the media, and even the police, was a telling experience that illuminated the difficulties of attempting to bring such a controversial subject into mainstream awareness. But I believe I was successful in creating a conversation about an unethical practice that is often under-noticed. It is my hope that my efforts have contributed towards the critique and eventual ending of the practice of primate testing.