The British cosmetic company Lush has stepped up the debate over animal testing.

Lush has long been opposed to animal testing for cosmetics, and avoids using products that have been tested by third parties in its products. Yet a European Union law on chemicals and their use may be used to try and force animal testing on corporations such as Lush. The law is known as REACH and stands for Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemical substances. While sympathetic to the laws general purpose of testing all chemicals and their additive and syncretic effects, Lush has vigourously opposed requirements for animal testing through their Fighting Animal Testing campaign (http://www.fightinganimaltesting.com/the-lush-campaign/)

As part of this campaign, Lush recently hosted and live-streamed a work of performance art on animal testing. The artist was subjected to a variety of restraints and tests — forced feeding, eye irritants, injections, and the like.

The response has included not only widespread revulsion at the testing of animals for cosmetic purposes, but an acrimonious debate over the performance art. Was it disrespectful of women? Is there is any connection between how animals and women are treated by society? Does suggesting a connection debase women or do right by animals?

You can espy the shifting landscape of these discourses in a letter of justification by Lushs campaign manager, Tamsin Omond. The letter was published in The Guardian last month, and the comments represent an ongoing dispute over the best discourse(s) by which to understand the issue — Animal rights, animal welfare, dominionism, sexism, speciesism, misogyny, misandrony, and more. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/27/lush-animal-cruelty-performance-art.

Image: Lush blog, http://www.fightinganimaltesting.com/our-blog/the-horror-of-animal-testing-for-cosmetics/.