NYT Just Defended Animal Torture Because Trump Opposed It
I worked for four years in behavioral psych and neuroscience research labs that used rats and mice. I’m deeply familiar with the protocols, ethics, and limits of animal research. I’ve seen the genuine effort many labs make to keep their animals safe, enriched, and rehomed instead of euthanized. I’ve also put rats down, because they were suffering or we needed their brain. I’ve seen the sharp line between rigorous, necessary experimentation and unjustifiable cruelty. Every researcher I’ve spoken to, even those who continue to work with animals, agrees that some research crosses the line into outright abuse.
That’s why I was appalled by The New York Times’ recent coverage defending Harvard’s disturbing animal experiments. Let’s be honest, this take was not rooted in ethics, but rather because Donald Trump happened to be the one who defunded some of the most abusive animal studies of the 21st century. The Times went out of its way to frame grotesque research — including one Harvard professor’s repeat psychological torment of monkeys — as a tragic loss. Meanwhile, animal welfare groups like PETA, White Coat Waste Project, and the Humane Society praised the Trump-era moves to cut this kind of research and advance humane alternatives. Once again, NYT staff’s morality seems to depend entirely on who’s making the decisions, not what the decisions actually accomplish.
Even more baffling, the Times blames the government for failing to rehome research animals, not the grant recipients who conducted the research in the first place. They are entertaining an idea that any damage to animals should be blamed on the government, not the research labs that conducted the abuse. This is based on the faulty premise that not all animals can be rehomed. That is a notion I don't accept.
Let’s be honest: Everyone who works in animal rescue understands that euthanasia, while tragic, is sometimes necessary, without infinite resources. Anyone who backs a project that inflicts prolonged animal suffering, then acts like euthanasia is the red line is engaged in moral theater, not moral clarity.
The irony is that modern science already offers powerful, humane alternatives to animal research. As Vox and others have pointed out, cutting back on torturous animal research means updating scientific methods and progress. We now have organoids (miniature, lab-grown organs), organs-on-chips (devices that mimic human physiology), AI-powered drug simulations, and computer models that predict biological responses better than mice ever could. Personalized medicine based on RNA sequencing and individual patient data is making animal models increasingly irrelevant. The cases for animal research are few and increasingly misleading, based on outdated scientific and ethical standards.
Why simulate human illness in a monkey when you can model it using actual human cells? For me, this isn’t a rhetorical question for Emily Anthes, the expert author who posits that animal research is needed in 2025.
Strategic funding cuts directed at outdated and redundant research can free up resources to accelerate modern alternatives. Instead of maintaining massive colonies of stressed, half-used lab animals for legacy experiments, labs can pivot toward precision medicine, collaborative data modeling, and scalable in vitro methods. Defunding isn’t inherently anti-science; it’s a signal to evolve. Shuttering ethically dubious studies can open the door for safer, faster, more relevant scientific breakthroughs. It will also spare countless animals in the process.
Necessity is the mother of invention, Emily Anthes and whichever other NYT lunatics ran this story. Invention does not come from bloated grants and moral laziness.
The real story isn’t that some animal studies were cut, it’s that many should’ve been cut long ago. It’s time to stop pretending that ethics are suspended just because someone you dislike made the call. Torture is torture. And when even PETA is on Trump’s side, maybe it’s time to stop reacting and start thinking.
