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
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
“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.
are not able to give consent for this as would be required of a human. Other
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.”
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
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:
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.
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
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
There are many debates about whether or not animals such as mice and rats should be experimented on. The organization Psychologist for the Ethical Treatment of Animals believes in observing animals instead of experimenting on them (Meyer). Another known organization is People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). An organization that is in favor of animal experimentation is called Pro-Test and is located in the United Kingdom (UK). This organization thinks that experimenting on animals may help humans. About 95% of animals are not protected by the Animal Welfare Act like reptiles, birds and mice (“Animal Testing”). Experimentation on animals should not be permitted in any country, including the United States, because it is cruel and inhumane, because we have developed new technology that can replace these experiments, and because sometimes the results that are found are not directly relevant to humans.
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.
When people experiment on animals that is characterized to be very unethical for the safety of the animals being tested on. In that substance, a cosmetic company using animals such as rabbits to test the irritancy levels of its products eyes for the purposes of making nonirritating cosmetics for women who will use such products is by far unethical and wrong. Because treatment brings pain and discomfort to the animals in testing. I also support the moral idealism that “humans do not have the right to capture animals against their will and subject them to life-threatening experiments” (Neu, 2012). I feel that all animals should be given a full and healthy life and not be mistreated in any way. And using rabbits or any creatures for testing for
Right this second, millions of animals are in cold empty cages waiting to be put out of their pain and misery. Around the country, animal testing trials are going on right now, as we speak. Many do not consider that those animals that are tested on are not taken care of properly, when animals are in pain and scared, they give off negative results, but most importantly, people and animals are different, which creates inaccurate results. PETA is an organization to help protect animals against cruelty. On their website it states, “The only U.S. law that governs the use of animals in laboratories—the Animal Welfare Act—allows animals to be burned, shocked, poisoned, isolated, starved, forcibly restrained, addicted to drugs, and brain-damaged” (“Animal testing is bad”, n.d., para. 21). We do not protect our animals as well as we should, but on top of that, these animals
“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