Animals in Labs Article used with permission from All-Creatures.org

Victoria Moran shares the impassioned speech she delivered on the first evening of the March to Abolish Animal Testing, where she delves into the history of vivisection, the antivivisection movement, and where this special march fits in the ongoing saga.

My tiny part in a Great Big March
From Victoria Moran, Main Street Vegan Academy, MainStreetVegan.com
October 2026

Images from Canva

Originally printed in the Main Street Vegan blog, MainStreetVegan.com.

On the evening of the first day of the March to Abolish Animal Testing, I spoke to intrepid animal people who had walked from Albany, to Schenectady, NY, at the beginning of their 2-week trek to Marshall Bioresources near Rochester. This is what I said.

It isn’t often that I get to speak to a whole audience of luminaries. I want first to address the most luminous of all, Jane, the beautiful beagle rescued from the shuttered Ridglan Farms in Wisconsin, and now in a loving home with Ella Majers who, along with Gretchen Primack and a host of volunteers, has made this historic event a reality. You are doing something incredibly special — for animals certainly, to raise awareness absolutely, to get Marshall Bioresources shut down for ever — yeah!, and to bring us closer and closer to animal testing’s being relegated to the scrap heap of history where it belongs. But you’re also doing something that will change your life forever.

I want to say to each of you, whether you’ll be marching for 14 days or 4 hours: you’re brave, you’re exceptional, and you’re also lucky. Think of all the circumstances that had to line up to make it possible for you to be here for them. Maybe you got time off work. Maybe your mom took your kids. Maybe the sprained ankle that you thought would keep you from walking got a clean bill of health a week early so you could do this on foot instead of doing a plan B.

I can be here only for this evening. My husband is disabled these days and I’m his sole caregiver, but it just so happened my daughter wanted to come to NYC, where we live, from Orlando, for a stage fighting seminar — she’s a professional aerialist and stunt performer, and a lifelong vegan [memo: why isn’t she protein deficient?]. Anyway, her seminar just happened to take place this afternoon. She can stay with my husband tonight and tomorrow morning.

Once I did do something somewhat like what you’re about to embark on. It was almost 50 years ago, and Dick Gregory — who was then a famous comedian and a tireless activist for human rights, peace, health reform, and animals — got 120 of us to the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta to fast — 7 days, water only, and Dick Gregory abstained from even water — to draw attention to the connection between world hunger and eating animals. But plane tickets were expensive and I told my friend, Alima, that I couldn’t afford to go.” And she said, “You can’t afford not to.” Did somebody tell you that about this? If they did, good for you. If not, good for you that you told yourself.

That experience was life changing for me, as this one will be for you. Just as you’re hearing from speakers at each stop, many of them with big reputations, Dick Gregory had impressive people do conference calls over a loudspeaker every night to keep us grounded. Coretta Scott King was one of them, and our favorite: Muhammad Ali.

After that fast, back home in Kansas City where I lived, one Wednesday morning I was rushing out the hotel where I had a gym membership, and there he was: Ali, bigger than life and the most handsome man I had ever seen. I ran up him and said, “Excuse me, but I was at the fast in Atlanta last month. Your calls meant so much: you were really our hero.” And the Heavyweight Champion of the World said to me: “No, you guys were the heroes. I should have been there fasting with you.” At the height of his fame and at the height of his vitality, this iconic human being, known for saying “I am the greatest,” said instead, “You guys, you who showed up and did what you said you’d do, even when it was hard and if you wanted to quit: you’re the heroes.”

And here we are now. 2026. Schenectady, New York, a city that is much too hard to spell but I’m working on it. And although I’m not the champion of anything, I know without a doubt that I’m feeling now what Muhammad Ali felt then: that a group of people can opt to do something spectacular, and any of us with a conscience can say, “I wish I were with you for the duration.”

You are doing God’s work — if you don’t like that word, use another one. Vivisection is the earliest animal cause that people spoke out against. Even some of the ancient Greek philosophers opposed it, and by the 1700s, great minds like Voltaire, Alexander Pope, and Dr. Samuel Johnson railed against the practice. Johnson called the people who experimented on dogs “a race of wretches.” At that time, these people had to fight the widespread belief, promulgated by Descartes, that animals were automatons: torturing them was fine, since they felt no pain. It’s worse now. The people harming them know they’re suffering. Those folks at Marshall Bioresources breeding these trusting beagles, feisty ferrets, the playful kitties, and precious tiny pigs know they are being bred to suffer. These fellow humans of ours have been trained not to care.

The first established anti-vivisection group dates back to 1875. This means that we, and our predecessors, have been at this, collectively, for 150 years. On the downside, animal experimentation is the very heart of Big Pharma, and Pharma runs the world. Doctors write prescriptions for every part of your body and brain. If someone is addicted to a drug, they may find their way to the 12 Steps but probably not before going through a dozen prescriptions. The prevailing model of health and healing is that each of us is a biomedical machine controlled by genes, even though the new science of epigenetics — that’s beyond genetics — is crystal clear that the lion’s share of disease is caused by lifestyle and consciousness. A great deal of the work being done on health and disease ought to be focusing on health, and doing so in ways that mean nobody gets hurt.

And even in standard drug testing, it is a travesty that we’re not using the state-of-the-art techniques now available much more widely. But even beyond this, let’s remember: these animals are being bred, tortured, and killed in support of a healthcare system that is, in and of itself, off-track. We’re up against a lot. What was done at Ridglan and what you’re doing on this long march is unique. It’s powerful. It will have a ripple effect of that none of us can accurately foresee.

You are changing history, you are making history, and it breaks my heart that we cannot compress history so that every animal can be saved now. But every mile. Every day. Every blister. Every Ace bandage wrapped around somebody’s knee brings us closer to victory. And most of all, it brings all the Janes out there closer to freedom. Godspeed.

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Victoria Moran is a writer, speaker, and longtime vegan and animal advocate. Her latest book is Age Like a Yogi and her podcast, Main Street Vegan, is in its 15th year. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn @VictoriaMoranAuthor, and on YouTube @VictoriaMoranOfficial.

Photo Credit: Victoria Moran, MainStreetVegan.com

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Posted on All-Creatures.org: October 6, 2026
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