World Day Against Speciesism isn’t just a symbolic date — it’s a call to dismantle a system built on lies.
And nowhere are those lies more entrenched, more codified, or more guarded than in U.S. animal research law.
We know what cages look like.
Metal bars. Concrete walls. Wire floors. But:
The most inescapable cage in any lab isn’t made of metal or concrete or wire. It’s made of speciesism.
Speciesism is the fabricated, unscientific, profit-driven lie that some animals matter less because they’re not “like us” or don’t make us go “aww”.
No law enshrines this grotesque lie more blatantly than the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) — the only federal law that even pretends to regulate the treatment of animals in laboratories.
For purposes of animal research, the AWA defines “animal” to exclude more than 99% of the victims.
Mice, rats, and birds bred for research are not considered “animals”.
Neither are reptiles.
Or amphibians.
Or fish.
Or cephalopods.
Or insects.
Or crustaceans.
Or mollusks.
Not because science says they’re emotionless or don’t feel pain. But because the humans who want to hurt them say we shouldn’t care.
Many of those humans are animal researchers and their allies, but, in truth, speciesism persists not just because of industry pressure — but because of public ignorance and human apathy.
It is well known that most humans struggle to empathize with animals who don’t resemble us and those who aren’t cute and fuzzy (literally). This socially-conditioned, unfounded bias motivates many humans to dismiss cold-blooded animals as primitive or lesser and fuels their mass exploitation.
This persists even though science has long been clear that cold-blooded animals are not meaningfully different from the rest of us.
Dozens of studies have concluded that cold-blooded animals experience all the same emotions we humans feel on a daily basis, from anxiety, stress, and fear to excitement.
That they’re “smarter”, “more complex”, and “feel more” than we humans “ever thought”.
That they nurture, mourn, court, bond, and communicate.
That they suffer at human hands.
And, that’s one reason we’re thrilled about U.S. Representative Betty McCollum’s re-introduction of the Cold-blooded Animal Research and Exhibition (CARE) Act.
This federal bill would amend the AWA to recognize cold-blooded animals (including cephalopods, fish, reptiles, and amphibians!) used in research, testing, and experimentation as animals – finally granting tens of millions of exploited beings the most minimal of legal acknowledgements.
It wouldn’t fix the system or stop the violence. But it would put a crack in the legal armor of speciesism. And that matters.
Our work to free animals from labs is one part of a broader fight — a fight against institutionalized discrimination and oppression, a fight for justice grounded in moral principles.
Because, if suffering matters, it matters regardless of who experiences it.
And, because, if rights matter, they cannot only belong to the cute, the cuddly, the human-like, or the human-loved.
Cold-blooded animals don’t need to act like us.
They need us to act like them: they need us to CARE.
Your call to action: Urge Congress to pass the CARE Act and finally recognize cold-blooded animals as the sentient beings they are.