Point: Bacteria Don’t Deserve to Be Experimented On

While PETA has devoted no small amount of time and effort to advocate for the rights of animals enduring nefarious testing methods in laboratories around the world, we have ignored one critical — perhaps the most critical — victim of scientific arrogance and cruelty: bacteria.

Bacteria are the number one test subjects of a great many laboratory experiments. They are the most convenient to grow and manage, and should an experiment fail, it only takes a day or two to grow a new batch of colonies. They are not fussy, they’re easy to analyze and manipulate, and they can be stored in freezers for months at negative 80 degrees Celsius. Yup, you read that right. Negative 80 degrees, frozen and crammed in rows and rows of little plastic tubes. I thought we’d left the techniques of the Dark Ages behind!

Just as the benefits of using bacteria as test subjects are numerous, so too are the abuses. Rather than have them flourish in their natural environments as the majestic microscopic beings they are, we turn them into GMO products through deplorable barbarity. No bacteria should be plopped onto a plate filled with nutrients for them to grow, only to be forcibly stuffed full of plasmids. It’s tantamount to force feeding, but worse! Who knows what kind of DNA is in those things? And in order for plasmids to be absorbed, cells must go through the equivalent of electroshock therapy — what other possible explanation is there for the term electroporation? — or even heat torture! Chemical torture! Mutagenesis! Staining! Gene knockdowns, whatever that means! We even put them in a bacterial Hunger Games by infecting them or using antibiotics to select for certain colonies!

The facts are clear. Working with bacteria in the lab inevitably leads to a marathon of torture for these poor souls, culminating in a shocking 100% kill rate. The most common method of execution? Bleach. Unbelievable. We’ve stooped so low for the sake of progress. End this barbarity, now!

Counterpoint: They’re Not Fucking Animals

I thought we were an intelligent species. How else could we come up with things like a doctorate and the electron microscope? Then I come across this bullshit on the morning news and I have to wonder if the development of our brains stopped with the formation of opposable thumbs. Are we now forever doomed to be naked monkeys clapping cymbals at each other? Because that’s what this looks like!

You make it sound like we’re stuffing ducks for foie gras and not using the latest CRISPR technology to alter basic protein expression in prokaryotes. Prokaryotes. Do you know what those are, you caveman? Wait, I apologize — it doesn’t matter if you don’t know what prokaryotes are, or how bacteria evolved and where they stand on whatever nonsense spiderweb that taxonomists are always changing. You having zero knowledge of bacterial classification, what DNA is, and how bacterial cloning works — or any lab work at all, really — has no bearing on whether or not you have the common sense of a dung beetle.

What kind of existential postulating is this? Are bacteria happy? You should be asking if I, the human being toiling away in a white building with crusty lab benches and perpetually malfunctioning autoclaves, am happy after the eighth consecutive attempt at transforming a bacterial strain to produce one goddamn protein, but you don’t give a rat’s ass, don’t you? If you’re advocating for (again — non-animal!) microorganisms, I bet you lot are going to move onto houseplants next, and before you know it you’ll be pushing for all of Earth to give up agricultural products and turn to synthetic space ice cream for sustenance. Don’t even get me started on yeast and fungi. Woe betide anyone who harms anything organic! Maybe in a few decades you’ll start accusing the CDC of conducting barbaric studies on viruses!