Comprehension Ex.1 Are the following sentences true or false? Correct the false ones.

1. A couple tried to sell their seven-month-old baby on eBay.

2. When the police found out, they thought it was very funny.

3. The parents put a starting price of $1,000,000 for the baby.

4. The baby’s older brother told police about the eBay sale.

5. The mother is having tests to see if she is good at sports.

6. The mother said she tried to sell her baby because it was too noisy.

7. The mother has to undergo psychiatric testing in a week’s time.

8. An Internet crime specialist thought the sale was ridiculous.

Discussion Ex.1 Answer the following questions.

1. What are your thoughts on this story?

2. Do you think the woman is fit to be a mother? Why? Why not?

3. Should the parents be sent to prison for trying to sell their son?

4. What do you think of the parents’ claim that they put their son on eBay as a joke?

5. What would you do if you saw a baby for sale on the Internet?

6. How do you think Merlin will feel when he finds out he was once an item for sale on eBay?

7. What do you think would have happened if someone had placed a bid?

Animal rights and wrongs

'Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are like us.' Ask the experimenters why it is morally OK to experiment on animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are not like us.' Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction.'

Professor Charles R. Magel

Every year there are a total of 4,344,843 experiments on animals in Britain. They include everything from trials of new pet foods involving no suffering whatsoever, to experiments in which dogs and monkeys are forced to smoke continuously, or are deliberately injured to evaluate the effects of pain-killing drugs.

Animal experimentation is a multibillion-dollar industry fueled by massive public funding and involving a complex web of corporate, government, and university laboratories, cage and food manufacturers, and animal breeders, dealers, and transporters. The industry and its people profit because animals, who cannot defend themselves against abuse, are legally imprisoned and exploited.

There have been protests from animal rights groups (such as PETA) about experiments on animals (vivisection) for many years. Extreme groups have raided laboratories and released animals, and some scientists have had their homes daubed with slogans. Attitudes to animals vary greatly between two extremes. Some of us regard animals as simply lumps of walking meat, others see them as almost human. How should we react to animals? How do you feel about these situations?

• Dolphins and whales have larger brains than us. There is considerable evidence that they are able to communicate with each other. Scientists who have worked with dolphins consider them to be truly intelligent. Some believe that they might even be more intelligent than us. Because their environment provides all their needs they have developed in a different non-material way. They are still being hunted and killed.

• Calves and other animals are 'factory farmed'. In the case of calves, they are kept in the dark, unable to move for their entire short lives, so as to produce white tender meat (veal). Most eggs are produced by battery hens kept in similar conditions, although many consumers are prepared to pay more for 'free-range eggs'.

• In southern England one particularly popular picnic area has a fairly large population of adders, which are poisonous and fairly common, and smooth snakes which are not poisonous and fairly rare. The local council decided to try and kill all the snakes in the area. Environmental groups protested, and nothing has yet been done.

• In the United States there are animal cemetreies, and it's possible to buy 'biodegradable' (i.e. cardboard) caskets so that your pet hamster or gerbil can be buried in style.

• An Englishman was very angry because cats were fouling his lawn and digging up his flowers. He put down poisoned meat, and warned the owners not to let their cats out of their houses. The owners prosecuted him and he was fined.

• A road-safety advert in Britain shows a car swerving to avoid a dog, and hitting a lamp post, severely injuring the driver. A few years ago a car swerved so as not to hit a dog and killed four people in a bus queue.

• Fox-hunting and other blood sports are under discussion in Britain. Those who want to ban fox­ hunting say it is both cruel to the fox, and dehumanizing for the hunter. Supporters say that farmers would soon make foxes extinct by using traps and guns, and that guns might injure without killing.

• A rich Londoner discovered that her poodle was diabetic. She paid for daily injections for 16 years in order to keep it alive and when it died, had a memorial erected to it at London's Battersea Dogs' Home.

Notes

contradiction	противоречие, несоответствие
trial	испытание
deliberately	преднамеренно
to evaluate	оценить
animal breeder	животновод
abuse	плохое обращение, насилие
PETA	People for Ethical Treatment of Animals
to daub	намалевать
calf	теленок
veal	телятина
consumer	потребитель
free-range	выращенный в естественных условиях
adder	гадюка
smooth snake	медянка
cemetrey	кладбище
casket	гроб
gerbil	песчанка
to foul	портить, пачкать
to swerve	резко свернуть в сторону
extinct	вымерший
to erect	воздвигать, сооружать