Imagine a life locked away in a cage with no form of control on your existence. It’s cold, dark, and you are scared. You don’t have a choice of what you eat, where you live, or how you are treated. You are unsure if it is day or night or what will happen to you next. You are locked away in a prison cell and you committed no crime. This is the life of a laboratory animal. Animal testing is the use of animals for scientific research purposes and experiments. It can be used for the findings of cures and medicines to testing new drugs, to understanding the behavioral psychology of the animals themselves. “Around fifty to one hundred million vertebrate animals, ranging from fish to primates, are used in experiments each year” (Lloyd). There are …show more content…
As human, we are unarguably the prevailing species on earth. We can treat animals in ways we chose for the sake of science; but the question still becomes, it is morally or ethically right to cause an animal suffering for our benefit? At which stage do we justify our use of animals for experiments?
There is no argument that animals have played a critical role in medical research and paved the way for antidotes, cures and remedies for humans throughout history. Aristotle, who lived back in the fourth century B.C., is one of the first to be recorded as experimenting on a living animal. Back in the 1920s there was experimental testing on dogs which gave conclusive evidence to the functions the pancreas has on producing insulin. Before this, diabetes was untreatable, unmanageable and would easily result in death in humans (The Discovery of Insulin). Although testing on animals has been beneficial to us in many instances, there are several examples that prove testing on animals has hurt rather than helped the process. Many scientists argue that the physiological makeup of an animal differs strongly from that of a human resulting in different outcomes of drugs and other experiments. There has been a strong connection between smoking and lung cancer dating back to the 1960s, however all experiments done with animals failed to show
An estimated 30 million animals are used per year in biomedical and research experiments ("Update: Animal Testing" 1). In particular, about 75,000 dogs, including thousands from homeless shelters, are abused every year in laboratories in the United States ("Dogs in Laboratories | PETA.org” 1). “Man’s best friend” is a preferred choice by scientists for use in toxicology experiments. Dogs are tormented as they undergo tests involving overdoses of pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals, pesticides, or household products, gradually poisoning them and sometimes resulting in death ("Dogs in Laboratories | PETA.org” 1). In what way does treating animals with such disrespect seem ethical at all? Animals were not put on the earth to be destroyed for research in the name of “science.”
From when you are a baby to when you are an adult animal testing is used in your everyday products. From the Pampers you put on as a baby and the Johnson and Johnson you are washed with. To when you are older the Febreeze, Sunsilk, and Gillette you use.( Companies That do Test on Animals) Animal testing surrounds you in every act of life. “The guess is around 100 million animals are used worldwide in animal testing.” (Animal Rights) Animal testing is rooted from natural curiosity. How the insides of a living organism operate and look is an interesting idea. Because of the fact that dissection of humans was illegal by the Roman Church, animals were the second best option for knowledge of living organisms. (Animal Testing) The debate
It is always said that animals are used for experimentation because genetically they are closest to human beings but if they are this closely related, why are we abusing and torturing them? This is affected ignorance. In her article, “Affected Ignorance and Animal Suffering” Nancy Williams talks about different forms of affected ignorance. One form stood out more than others, “when people refuse to acknowledge the connection between their actions and the consequent suffering of their victims.” The experiments performed on animals are said to be beneficial to those animals, but studies have shown that animal testing could mislead researchers into ignoring cures and treatments. There are chemicals beneficial to human beings but harmful or ineffective to animals, such as aspirin (Akhtar). There are some medicines that have been tested on animals that provide benefits to these animals but when used in human testing, the results were less than great. For example, the drug thalidomide, which was a sleeping pill used in the 1950s, caused severe birth defects in ten thousand newborns. However, when the drug was tested on pregnant animals such as mice, rats, guinea pigs, cats, and hamsters there was no birth defects unless given at an extremely high dosage (Greek). The use of animals in experiments are unreliable when it comes to testing
Animal testing is the when animals are used in testing facilities all over the world for cures, scientific research, experiments and medicine. Each year millions of animals such as household pets (dogs, cats, rabbits) and other animals such as rats, mice are used in various scientific experiments. During testing these animals experience physical and/or mental torture. Although scientists believe that these experiments are obligatory if they are to succeed in breakthroughs, I believe that these experiments are cruel, painful and immensely dangerous. A massive flaw is that animals are exposed to an infliction of unnecessary pain.
Facilities that use animals for teaching, experimentations, surgery or testing purposes are known as research facilities. Currently, there are twelve animal research facilities in the state of Alabama ("General Information on Animal Research"). There are many different reasons why animals are used for research. Animals are used to test the products used in cosmetics, for biomedical research, for military defense and food production. Many people including the general public, scientists and government officials do not necessarily agree to the terms and conditions to which these animals are used for testing
“Lots of people talk to animals…Not very many listen, though…That’s the problem”(Ben Hoffman). The controversy of animal testing is phenomenal; it always has been. I remember dissecting animals throughout my years of school in the "name of science". It was only until recently that I started questioning the government 's methods to teach us. We dissected a dog shark in my oceanography class last year. There had to been at least 80 dead sharks in about four different buckets; that was when it crossed the line. I understood a lamb eye or something, but breeding sharks in captivity just so they can be killed? Animal testing is wrong in every way to me.
Every year, animals are subjected to cruel and unnecessary experimentation. According to the USDA, “between 1990-1997 research labs registered with the USDA reported killing at least 12,895,885 dogs, cats, primates, guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, bears, armadillos, squirrels, wild rodents and other species. This doesn't include non USDA registered labs” (“Wikianswers”). Lab animals are cut up and tortured to death all in the name of science. How can we as fellow animal species continue to allow this to happen? Animal testing is a callous and barbaric practice. It is unreliable, and there are newer ways to test products that do not involve slaughtering animals. Animals have no voice and cannot defend themselves, so we need to take a stand
are not able to give consent for this as would be required of a human. Other
Animal testing is when animals are used in different tests, experiments, and studies. These tests, experiments, and studies often result in the harm and/or death of the animals. People often say the animals are used in order to benefit humans, such as making sure that products are safe and helping make advancements in medicine. When people use everyday products, most never think about how the product was determined to be safe. The animal’s involuntary sacrifice is almost never even a thought in most people’s minds. These animals undergo cruel treatment, harmful experiments, and even death for the “benefit” of humans.
Every year in the United States of America more than 100 million helpless animals will suffer and die from malicious chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics tests. Rabbits, Cats, birds, reptiles and amphibians are not covered by the minimal protections of the Animal Welfare Act, so they go unnoticed towards the millions of sufferers. Millions of rodents, birds, rabbits, primates, felines, canines, and other types of animals are locked inside barren cages in laboratories across the country. People have diverse opinions on animal testing and its morality. Morality refers to the standards of right and wrong shared in the society. We can define it as “human rights.” Ten moral traditions that all serious people accept are:
In the history of mankind, human used numerous animals to sustain their life and to keep their species. They used animals to hunt other animals or they use them to protect themselves. Sometimes they eat the hunting animals if they fail to hunt other animal. They also used animals to acquire knowledge. They learned biology through dissect animals and they also learned pharmacology through test medicines on animals. However present day, people start to ask question about ethics of animal testing. Some groups of people say that animal testing has no problem with ethics. Most of people in this groups does not want to think of animals as on the same level of themselves. On the other hand, other groups of people think that because animals cannot
Animal testing is used for scientific or commercial uses. Warm blooded animals , such as bunnies and mice, are used as subjects for makeup and household products. According to the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) it is legal for animal testing in the United States. Animal Testing should be banned unless the Animal has no more life in them.
The controversy behind animals as research subjects is mainly one of morals and the ethical treatment of said animals. Many people believe we should use them in this way, so we aren 't actually harming people in the pursuit for better things for humans. Though animal testing was a viable resource for many years, it has proven to be extremely controversial and unethical, therefor the use of animals as research subjects should be outlawed.
“Animal experimentation is the term used to explain the use of animals in education, training and research” (“Animal Experimentation” ) in order to enhance medical and cosmetological experimentation for humans, and involves keeping animals locked up in a laboratory. The sole purpose of animal experimentation and the use of animals in research dates back to when humans started looking for ways to cure and prevent deadly diseases. Today, “the majority of animal experiments do not contribute to improving human health, and the value of the role that animal experimentation plays in most medical advances is questionable” (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. par. 1). In other words, animal experimentation is not justified in the world we
U.S. Food and Drug administration declared that “currently, nine out of ten experimental drugs fail in clinical studies because we cannot accurately predict how they will behave in people based on laboratory and animal studies” (qtd. in "Experiments on Animals: Overview" n.d.).Therefore animal testing is not used in great number to advance knowledge but rather to find the “one-in-a-million” chance that it could help. The fact that animal research for scientific purposes cannot be directly implied to humans most of the time in it of itself brings controversy. This is because subjecting animals to harmful testing for human medical advancement with a great chance that the results cannot be used to achieve said advancement seems inhumane to many.