Arguments Against Animal Testing

Animals, whether cats in the house or lions on the savannah, reserve the right to life. The disregard for animal life has been equated to racism or sexism; acting on principles of disrespect for life and thoughts of discrimination (Animal Testing and Ethics). The continuation of animal testing and experimentation take an enormous psychological toll on humanity, leading to rationalization and flawed justification. To carry on this path would darken the mark this animal abuse is currently leaving on our humanity, one step towards yet another fault in human nature.

Animal testing is a common practice in current life that is necessary to ensure the safety of the humans that will be using the tested product. There are many good and bad aspects of animal testing, but the pros clearly outweigh the cons. Animal testing has been around since ancient times when animals were dissected to gain knowledge about the body and organs. The animals killed from animal testing make up a tiny percentage of the total animals killed every year. When just considering the animals used for food compared to the animals used for testing, testing animals make up a mere 2.6 percent of that number. Public safety far outweighs the lives of the small amount of animals killed.

Millions of animals suffer due to effects of testing they must endure. This testing is usually done unethically and causes major harm. It’s wrong to harm animals for the sake of testing products for society. Furthermore, animals are living creatures just like humans and should not be treated differently. While testing animals may be cheaper, it is morally wrong and causes many harmful side effects in animals.

Animal testing is a cruel way to try and develop new products. There are several other and much safer options that will get better results and potentially save up to two million animals every single year. The Animal Welfare Act is in place but only minimally protects certain animals and leaves many others, up to 95%, vulnerable to atrocious fates. The animals not protected by this act (mostly small or considered house pets) are most widely used and not related closely to humans. There are several alternative methods but they are being neglected since they are new and not being enforced because of it. A few countries and states have banned certain aspect of animal testing but others are encouraging this cruelty.

Have you ever had a sick relative? If so, have they used medication to help with said illness? Well that medication had to have come from somewhere. Animal testing has help conduct products such as vaccines for smallpox, hypothermia, and other major diseases. Now take into consideration what might have happened to that relative without the medication. As you can tell, animal testing has a positive impact on society, despite what might be claimed to be unjust. I will be explaining why this is so, and how some of the arguments are irrelevant.

Animal testing is something that is extremely prevalent in our world. It is crucial for any medical issues and many other day-to-day things we do and use. People, though, do not like the fact that we kill innocent animals everyday. In our society, there is a lot of animal abuse. It is sanctioned and legal to test on animals, even if that means that we harm and abuse animals. There is no limit to how much the animals are harmed because they are not protected by laws since testing is completely legal. This is an issue that is not really talked about, but needs to be discussed. Animal testing results are not an accurate predictor of the effects of many products on humans. If this is true, why do we test on them? The supporters of animal testing rely on scientific evidence and experiments to prove that the results of animal testing will benefit humanity, but the people who protest against animal testing want to protect the rights of all animals and try to find flaws with the scientific experiments being done on animals.

There is much debate over whether animal testing should be allowed or not. Some people think that it is not essential to sacrifice animals for human benefits because they are being abused and tortured severely during experiments. Some others who stand against animal testing claim that humans eliminate many lives on earth in order to safe humans’ lives, so there is no justice because even animals have the right to live on earth, yet these people do not consider the truth that animals are being used in the food industry or in the laboratories. Thus, if someone asks how many animals are being used in the laboratory experiments around the world every year, who can give an accurate answer? It can be one, ten, or fifty million. It is difficult to find the exact figure on this question because people only read news through mass media such as having a new vaccine which can help human avoid uterus cancer or a new medicine help humans cure strokes, but they also need to know how many lives of the animals would have to take in order to get theses vaccines. Therefore, some organizes think that animal testing is one of the most disturbing experiments ever, and it should be banned. Despite many controversies with opposing opinions, a compromise can be made in order to reduce the use of animals in the laboratory experiments.

“The question is not, ‘Can they reason?’ nor, ‘Can they talk?’ but ‘Can they suffer?’” Jeremy Bentham said this, and this quote has become commonly used when speaking against animal testing. Why should those who are defenseless, have no say on their future? As technology advances, alternative methods of testing have come to the surface, but are ignored by those who believe that the results may not come as accurate. Many countries in the world, such as India and Israel, have passed laws against the use of animals to test cosmetic products. If they were able to use alternative testing methods then why shouldn’t the U.S.?

According to the National Institutes of Health, animal testing has been around since the days of philosopher Aristotle. According to ProCon.org, there are an estimated 26 million animals used for scientific and commercial testing in the U.S. alone. Animal testing has brought many good things to the medical world, such as the treatment various disease. Also, the animal is being tested by many cosmetics companies. On the other hand, organizations like PETA- People of Ethical Treatment of Animals have fought against the medical testing of animals. There are pros and cons that come with the usage of animals in the biomedical and cosmetic testing, and each side needs should be carefully examined before deciding one way or another.

Many of you see animal testing as cruel and inhumane, I was one that viewed it that way

Animal testing is an old fashioned way of testing medications and products to ensure that they are safe for humans. It is a way to further our society, without inflicting any harm to our race, but in today's society, it is no longer a required option for testing. For one, it is very cruel to animals. We should not be self involved and only think about ourselves. The world cannot survive that way. We need animals in the world, and if we continue treating them in this harmful manner they will no longer be able to provide for the world’s environment. Also, animal testing has been proven to not be as effective as people may think. In the Baltimore Sun writer Kelly Overton claims that “90 percent of medications approved for human use after animal testing later proved ineffective or harmful to humans in clinical trials.” This demonstrates that animal testing is no longer required in today’s society. We have better ways to test with new technology, instead of with animal testing that has been proven to be highly ineffective. Overall, in the past animal testing may have been needed to save

Chimps are put in this cage for years and has no food and water. A chimp is used every day for research. It was my first day as a scientist in a company that they offered me a job. I was going as in an undercover as an FBI. As soon as I walked in saw chimps being tested on. They were sending me undercover because peopled were filing reports about it and they were denning it. The senior professor told me to do my first job. He told me to give shots to the chimps and she what happened as I did that the chimps were afraid to came near me. As I walked down the hall they were all going to the back of the cage of how scared they were. The professor didn’t want to tell me what the shot did because he feared of my reaction. But I had already an Idea

"Forty Reasons Why We Need Animals in Research." Understanding Animal Research. Understanding Animal Research, 11 Sept. 2014. Web. 16 Apr. 2016.

Every year, millions of animals are used in medical research to find the cure of different diseases and infections. This is because most animals have more or less the same physical processes as humans hence tend to give way good results. Animal rights activists claim that the animals have right to life and humane treatment therefore it is unethical and treatment to do the testing on them. Although the former statement is true, animals should be used in medical research because there is no other alternative for medical research on living organisms since it can saved life, helps to obtain good results and protect humans before starring their trial on humans.

There are a multitude of reasons why animals suffer during experiments. One of those reasons is stress. Due to the fact that animals have to live their life inside a laboratory, it rapidly increases their stress level. “Stress, routinely experienced by animals in labs, negatively influences the reliability of animal research data. Stress influences heart rate, pulse, blood pressure, muscular activity, and hormone levels and can modify the normal values of these variables significantly” (