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You can no longer boil a lobster alive in Switzerland, unless you stun it first:
The Swiss government has ordered an end to the common culinary practice of throwing lobsters into boiling water while they are still alive, ruling that they must be knocked out before they are killed.
As part of a wider overhaul of Swiss animal protection laws, Bern said that as of 1 March, "the practice of plunging live lobsters into boiling water, which is common in restaurants, is no longer permitted". Lobsters "will now have to be stunned before they are put to death," the government order read.
According to Swiss public broadcaster RTS, only electric shock or the "mechanical destruction" of the lobster's brain will be accepted methods of stunning the animals once the new rule takes affect.
Also at BBC.
(Score: 3, Informative) by turgid on Saturday January 13 2018, @01:28PM (8 children)
There has been all sorts of nonsense said over the years about animals and pain. In fact, I once read that some professional association of veterinary surgeons used some pretty flimsy reasoning to conclude that animals don't really get affected by pain because they're not "conscious" or self-aware or some drivel and therefore don't require pain killers...
I've also heard of people who catch crabs to sell as food ripping off their claws before throwing them alive into the freezer. The "logic" goes something like, "crabs can regrow lost limbs in the wild so it can't be that distressing for them."
Insects, on the other hand, are said to experience pain completely differently.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @01:53PM (6 children)
That was doctors and human babies up until the late 1980s (it still continues to this day in many places):
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150421084812.htm [sciencedaily.com]
The "null hypothesis" was that babies can't feel pain, and until proven otherwise there was no reason (or even dangerous) to give them pain killers or even be careful/gentle during medical procedures like tracheal intubation. Most parents had no idea, but if they found out and tried complaining the hospital would send them to a psychiatrist who would call them crazy.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:09PM (5 children)
That's down right psychopathic and cruel.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:15PM (2 children)
What i heard was that babies feel the pain, but have no long-term, lasting memory of it, so hey, no problem.
Circumcise them because, hey yeah they're crying like hell now, but in 5 minutes "Give me boob!", so what me worry?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @06:27PM
Some of them may remember in other ways. It's just like those people with memory problems: http://www.fearexhibit.org/brain/memory/claparedes_pinprick_experiment [fearexhibit.org]
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday January 16 2018, @09:58AM
Circumcision is a great example, actually.
Babies don't cry after circumcision. Why? They enter a state of shock.
Some people like to pretend they're 'just sleeping'. Sickening delusion.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:27PM (1 child)
It took me a bit to find this again, but they would even go so far as to report the mother as abusive if they objected:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1523-536X.1986.tb01023.x/full [wiley.com]
Lots of good sources here:
http://www.nocirc.org/symposia/second/chamberlain.html [nocirc.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @02:30AM
Your first link was paywalled, alternative here:
https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/letters-A5KITZPf7u [deepdyve.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @04:43PM
The problem is that even if we do accept the idea that animals feel pain the way that we do, it's very hard to establish how much medication to give or when they're feeling pain as many animals behave like they're not in pain so as not to become targets for predators.
Establishing how much pain humans feel is hard enough, what's a relatively minor discomfort for one person might be a very serious pain for somebody else. Since, animals aren't able to communicate in a way we understand, it's hard to establish how much pain they're feeling or even if they're in pain. Some behaviors can be assumed to be a response to pain, but we don't really have any way of knowing for sure.
The whole situation sucks, but anesthesia is a tricky state to create and maintain. Too much medication and there's brain damage and or death and not enough and the patient is in pain. Up until relatively recently we had medical doctors performing surgery on patients with little or no anesthetic.