Dr. Jacqueline Bousquet’s Take on Animal Experimentation. By Dr. Chapman Chen
- Chapman Chen
- 3 minutes ago
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Dr. Jacqueline Bousquet (1935–2013) was a French biologist and biophysicist who was associated with the CNRS and became a prominent critic of animal experimentation. She also served in the scientific leadership of Pro Anima, a French organization promoting alternatives to animal experiments.
Her 1992 book, Science dans la lumière: Pour une Terre plus humaine (Science in the Light: For a More Humane Earth) (St Michel Éditions) is most relevant to Vegan Theology. She argues on both scientific and ethical grounds that animal experimentation is unreliable, unnecessary and morally objectionable. She states that her own ethics prohibits her from experimenting on animals and described compassion as incompatible with inflicting experimental suffering.
In Chapter XV, “Avons-nous le droit de parler d’éthique?” (Do We Have the Right to Speak of Ethics?), she writes:
“I have never concealed the fact that my ethics forbid me to experiment on animals. It has always seemed impossible to me to split my life in two: on the one hand, a relationship of trust and total love with that dimension of ourselves which we call the Divine, and on the other, the cold, impassive attitude devoid of all compassion that experimentation on animals requires…”
This is in line with the Bible which states that God is love (1 John 4:8 NIV); God loves the world (John 3:16), including ALL His creation (Psalm 140, 145:9); and Christ is compassion (Matthew 9:13; 12:7).
Dr. Bousquet also holds a much broader, more spiritual/holistic conception of biology: living beings and the universe form an interconnected whole, so violence inflicted upon other beings ultimately has consequences for ourselves.
In Chapter IV, “La matière vivante” (Living Matter), she writes, “The universe is One; its particles are interdependent. We live in a world where everything is interconnected, and we are merely participants in it.”
Correspondingly, God says, “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” (Jer 23:24); and Jesus says “The Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21), and “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” Matt 25:40
In Chapter III, “La Terre est en danger de mort” (The Earth Is in Danger of Dying), Dr. Bousquet writes, “As long as an animal is exploited or subjected to suffering, human beings will be also, and nothing in the world can change this law of cause and effect.”
Similarly, Jesus says, “Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back,” says Jesus (Luke 6:38). And James the Just says, “Judgement will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy,” (James 2:3).Thus, when we help other sentient beings, we are also helping ourselves. When we abuse other sentient beings, we are in fact abusing ourselves. “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7).
As an abolitionist opposed to animal exploitation, and animal experimentation in particular, Dr Bousquet is indeed a rare specimen among biologists. Her understanding of the Divine as compassion for all sentient beings, and of the universe/nature as a mutually entangled network, is post-Newtonian, Christly, and Buddhaly—spiritually and lovingly quantum.
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