When the US Congress was considering the Animal Welfare Act, rats and mice were excluded because the cost of record keeping would be prohibitive, the effect on the testing of new medicine would be disastrous, and the public amusement at such inclusion would have sunk this unnecessary expansion of the Federal bureaucracy in ridicule and objection.

Now a few years later, Animal Rights organizations write that "we have arrived at a critical juncture in human progress", and "If our planet is to survive, mankind must relinquish its role as ‘conqueror’ of nature." This is the rationale for now including rats and mice under the Act.

This is yet another step in implementing the radical agenda of extremists who aim to reduce humans to the level of animals by appearing to be concerned about welfare for animals and thereby elevating the legal status of animals in human society. Humans are indeed animals, but animals are not human.