Animal Experimentation Should Be Legal

As of 2015, 200 to 225 million animals are said to used in laboratory research for the biomedical industry annually worldwide. Typically defended by arguments of reliability and human health benefits, recently the question of ethics and values placed on animal testing have caused it to become a relevant and pressing topic that has been more widely discussed and debated. First off, the laboratory conditions that are instigated upon millions of animal models for the sake of medical research has been said to be unethical and cruel. Additionally, it has been debated that the results of animal experimentation are unreliable across a wide range of areas. Lastly, animal testing not only leads away from the direction of resources from more effective testing methods but also prolongs the duration of time humans may need to wait for an effective cure. Therefore, the potential benefits of animal experimentation are greatly outweighed by the risks and collective harm of humans and animals which is why resources should be directed towards more human-based testing procedures.

For many years, the field of science has used animals in medical experiments worldwide, because of this innocent animals are being killed everyday. They are being tested with new drugs, new treatments, and by many makeup companies. Connecticut recently celebrated the passage of the “Beagle Freedom Law”, a law that requires laboratories to work with charities and rescue groups to find homes for research cats and dogs. Animals are being tested so humans do not have to be but animal tests do not reliably predict results in human beings, although animals are the closest thing to humans. Most experiments involving animals are flawed, wasting the lives of innocent animal subjects. Over 100 million animals suffer a year from testing. Testing animals is a lot more expensive than alternative methods and it is wasting government research dollars. Animal testing is not only a bad idea, but it is also inhuman and it should not be tolerated. The FDA should stop allowing animal testing. An animal does not give out the same results on a test than a human would.

Have you ever wondered why animals are used in experimentation? Each year over 100 million are killed due to experiments for biology lessons, medical training, chemical, drug, food, cosmetic testing, and curiosity driven experimentation. The better question is why? Why use animal when there are many alternatives. Animals may not be able to speak up for themselves but humans have a voice for them. Many people have participated in protest, taken surveys, and created organizations to protect animals from the cruelty.

Animals have successfully been used to understand biological processes, assess safety of different chemicals, develop vaccines and antibiotics, produce treatments for hepatitis C, rheumatoid arthritis, polio, diabetes and many more . However, it is impossible to know if the use of animals was required to acquire this research or if the amount of suffering and death could have been reduced or avoided in order to achieve the same results. It is well established that animals have been invaluable in the pursuit of biomedical research, and the benefits from using animals currently means that eliminating animal research is also immoral. This is because the benefits received from some research greatly outweigh the potential costs to the animals and it would be unjust not to perform such experiments. Consequently, animal research should not be fully banned due to the benefits it yields, but should be more heavily regulated to reduce the moral costs.

Animal Experimentation has been dated as far back as to the Early Greek Era. This practice has been viewed as ethical by research scientists trying to find new medical breakthroughs. Yet, in recent years, the use of animals in research and experimentation has been frowned upon by animal protection groups and animal rights activists. Animals are protected by certain guidelines and ethics prior to their use in research. Contrary to popular belief, animal experimentation should be viewed on a positive note, due to the fact that it can benefit human life, reduce adverse effects on humans, and the cost is cheaper and easier.

Thousands of each species are killed every year against their will due to animal testing. Most people are under the misconception that animal experiments enhance human cures due to the media, experimenters, and universities which exaggerate animals’ potential and the role they have played in past medical advancements. Researching thoroughly on websites, books, articles and organizations, I will prove the common misconception that animals are needed for human advancement to be incorrect. Animal testing is proven to hurt humans directly and misleading animal experiments causes humans to dispose of cures.

In history, animal experimentation has played a significant important role in leading to new discoveries and human benefit. However, what many people tend to forget are the numbers of animal subjects that have suffered serious harm during the process of experimentation. Each day across America innocent animals are used as test subjects for products that have little to no relevance importance. Animal testing has had many negative issues arise in society in a negative way. Debating over the animal rights movement has raised many questions and concerns for years. There is an ongoing controversy regarding if companies should stop testing their products on animals. Although animal research has been the cause of many medical breakthroughs, is it morally and ethically right to put animals in these kinds of situations? This is one of the underlying questions that must be solved before it is too late. When considering how truly reliable the results of animal test are, and the expense of testing will help bring new light to the problem. By simply passing a policy will not only address this issue, will help better products and medicine in the future.

Animal experimentation also known as animals testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments that seek to control the variables that affect the behavior or biological system under study (Wikipedia). Animal experimentation is a highly controversial topic as many debate between whether it is ethical to use animals for such experiments or research and if the use of animals is really necessary. Many argue that there are other methods that we can use to test out certain studies and products while others argue that the use of animals is crucial because it is inhumane to use people. I personally feel that we need to use animals for animal experimentation for many reasons such as there just isn’t a functioning system quite the same as ours, everyone including animals has benefitted from the tests and many other reasons that will be further discussed. But I do however, feel that animals should be treated better and put in better living conditions prior to being experimented on. I understand both sides of the argument and am prepared to advocate for both sides in this paper.

For centuries, the ethics of animal experimentation in the biomedical field have been questioned. Do the benefits of animals used in research outweigh the pain the animals endure? Animal rights activists will argue there are new alternatives that there are more accurate than animal testing. The success of trials on animals, has led to the continued use by scientists within the medical field. Additionally, testing on animals instead of humans puts humans out of harms way. The first Animal Cruelty Act was created in 1835 to regulate the use of animals for scientific purposes. According to Franco (2013), the “Enactment of the 1986 Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, remains the only known legislation to regulate animal experiments for nearly 50 years.” Even so, there will continue to be two sides of animal research, one side believes, without animal research there would not be the medical advancements present to this day. On the other hand, the use of animal research is unethical and the finding of new alternatives may also be even more beneficial than animal testing. Therefore, the medical field should either seek alternatives to animal research or the methods are refined to reduce the unethical treatment towards the animals as subjects.

Animal experiments date back long ago, the first use of animals in experiments date back to when ancient Greek physicians first used animals as models for anatomy and physiology. (Franco) Since then testing has been an ongoing even into the twenty first century. During that time, many treatments of diseases and procedures for humans and animals alike owe

Many consumer products and medical treatments are tested on animals before being distributed to the public. Experimenting on animals for various reasons is a practice that has been used for hundreds of years. But is it right? Although many of these experiments have led to medical breakthroughs, a considerable amount of these tests have failed as well, causing unexpected side effects and death. The large number of animals that are tested on each year and the amount of pain they go through is another cause for argument.

Animal experimentation has been used for centuries for biomedical research. One of the earliest examples is Greek physicians such as Aristotle and Galen who conducted tests on animals to get a better understanding of humans and make advances in the field of science. This method of experimenting on animals is out of date in today’s advanced technological society. This discussion of using animal for experimentation has dominated societal conversations for many years now due to many reasons. This includes the fact that there are alternatives, it proves ineffective, and it violates federal law.

Throughout history, animals have repeatedly been used for testing for biomedical research, food, transportation, and as a companion. Animal experimentation has played a significant role in leading to new findings, human advantages, and many medical advances that have helped us in the past decades (i.e., several diseases). While most argue that animal testing is necessary, others say it should not be accepted and causes suffering to innocent animals because the balance between the rights of animals and their use in medical research is a delicate issue with huge societal assumptions. However, the pros outweigh the cons, as scientific experiments on animals are necessary to advance medical and biological knowledge. Animal testing is, and will be, a critical stage for the medical and biological research.

It is believed that animal experimentation is needed in order to benefit from the results and improve in the medical field. However, in reality, most of the experiments do not aid in making much progress in human health. A considerable reason would be the differences between animals and humans. Animal rights organizations

Mahatma Gandhi, preeminent leader of Indian independence movement, once said that “the greatness of nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” In the light of it, animals rights have been dealing for a long time in means of morality. It is not a surprise that animals are engaged many parts of human as animals have been live with human from the beginning. Beyond whether animal testing is right or wrong, animal testing should be used for specific purposes with regulations keeping the border of morality. Especially, animal testing for medication experiment have been benefiting human in numerous ways. For instance, researchers used animal testing during the process of inventing Polio vaccine, the important cure for an infamous disease that paralyzed or crippled many young adults in America in 1950s. Until the Polio vaccine was discovered, many people were afraid of the disease because of its high death rate. But the Polio vaccine, which was based on animal testing, brought such a huge rescue. Not only Polio but also many other diseases were based on animal testing and retrieved many people proving how testing the animals is more important to human life and success and those many successes of medication through animal testing demonstrates that animal testing on medication is beneficial to human.