What Are The Arguments Against Animal Testing

In our ever-changing world the race to find the best technological advancements has never been higher. Progress within the medical field has changed drastically in the last 50 years. “Health is driven by the technologies that cure the unhealthy. These technologies need to advance along with an advancing society. In the last five decades new and improved, less expensive, medicine has been produced” (Leonard). Behind all this advanced medicine are the technologies, or creatures, that are used to test and improve the medicine. Animals are used to test the drugs and medicine that are in route to be produced for human use. “The term "Animal Testing" refers to procedures performed on living animals for purposes of research into basic biology and diseases, assessing the effectiveness of new medicinal products” (Humane Society). There are people who side with, and agree that animal testing improves the lives of humans, and there are individuals who believe the harm this research brings to animals is unreasonable and can be prevented.

Animal testing is not only beneficial to human but also animals, at least to those who are not used in the experiments, such as pets and endangered species. Along with researching for new treatments and medicines for

Throughout the years the use of animals in medical research has been a hot debate around the world. Although animal testing may be cruel and inhumane, thousands of humans are saved thanks to the research that animals supply researchers with. Animals testing have taken over our knowledge of medicine and treatments to a whole different level. Animal testing also does this in a cheap and effective way. Without animals testing out knowledge wouldn’t be up to date, in other words animals’ testing is good.

Imagine an animal’s feeling of panic and fear as it is about to be killed by a hunter or the isolation experienced as an animal sits in a laboratory, separated from its family and natural habitat, waiting to be harmed by harsh testing methods. Imagine the frightened state of a mother or father watching their innocent baby being captured. After considering the brutality towards animals in these scenarios, take into consideration the health benefits humans receive from different parts of these animals. Imagine health risks avoided through testing on animals first instead of on humans. Does human benefit justify

Animal testing, as previously mentioned, is not as reliable as it is made out to be. It is extremely difficult to replicate the complexity of a disease in humans and translate it to an animal through artificial induce it into an animal. Even if the disease is successfully replicated animals often don't react the same to medications as humans do (Akhtar, 1). The best example of this is that of Thalidomide, which despite animal testing caused deformations in babies born from women who took this drug. After the incident, producers retested the drug on animals, still not finding said deformities in any of the animals it was tested on (Greek, 1). In the article “How Reliable is Animal Testing” Author C Ray Greek makes the statement “An animal that responds like humans to one medication will not necessarily respond the same way to another medicine”, which was the case in the incident with the Thalidomide. This oversight when testing animals can lead to unforeseen fatalities and did lead to the deformation and in many cases death of thousands of babies affected by Thalidomide (Greek, 1). Animal testing is not only unreliable but in some cases even harmful and often does not lead to break through discoveries in the scientific field. In the article “The Flaws and Human Harms of Animal Experimentation”

Animal testing has been going on for years; however, few question the ethics of testing medicines that would cure human diseases on animals. Various animals being tested in labs and cruelly force them to be a host of harmful diseases negatively affect their health. Animal testing is cruel and unusual punishment and should discontinue. Animal experimentation is a subject that many know of but don’t know much about. Although it is a big topic, people still don’t pay much attention to it because of their lack of information. Experimenting is a cruel process that causes many innocent animals to suffer. Many cases of violations towards experimenting have been found as well. Testing on animals is unnecessary when laying down the

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.

It has been proven that “animal research has played a vital part in nearly every medical breakthrough over the last decade” states Understanding Animal Research, an advocacy group that aims to demonstrate the need for humane animal research. Animal testing acts as a huge help to the well-being and health of

Many animal activists argue against testing on animals; however, it is not as cruel as it seems. Testing is not as harmful on the animals as people may think, and it has a great purpose. Animal testing continues to advance society in a number of ways. Laboratory testing of animals should not be stopped because it is an effective way to test drugs, leads to important discoveries that save human lives, and it benefits the animals as well.

I don’t believe that animals have rights. I would tend to agree with Carl Cohen when he states that “a right, properly understood, is a claim, or potential claim, that one party may exercise against another” (Pojman and Vaughn, 2014, pg. 816). In the legal realm I completely agree that Cohen is correct because animals can’t have rights. They also to our knowledge at the moment have the capacity for moral judgment. However, we as humans have the capacity for moral judgment and I think that we should not torture animals. It is difficult though because as Cohen points out biomedical research requires it to be tested and it is seen as more acceptable to test it on animals than humans. While I’m not entirely sure how we could solve this issue I don’t think millions of animals should be killed. I don’t think that we are morally obligated to be vegetarians and while animals don’t have rights they really shouldn’t be tortured. Animals that are being used for

Have you ever lost a loved one or even heard of someone passing away from a preventable disease that could’ve been stopped if the medicine to cure them was tested? About 21,000 people died around the world today from preventable illnesses. That number can easily be reduced to a much smaller number if doctors and scientists had the capability to test medications on animals. However, some argue that making an animal suffer is terrible, who would you rather want suffering? Your best friend? Or a random rat or mouse? The choice is yours. Animal testing should be used because, it can save lives, there is no other way to test the medicine properly and they help us to figure out what to change in the medicine so that it works the next time.

Most arguments in favor of the use of animal testing for scientific use lead to the benefits it has for humans. Animal research has contributed to virtually every major medical advancement - for both human and veterinary health. From antibiotics to blood transfusion, from dialysis to organ transplantation, from vaccinations to chemotherapy, surgery and joint replacement, virtually every current treatment, cure and restraint of disease is based on understanding attained through research with lab animals. For example, dogs and fish were used for the development of insulin, which is now able to help control diabetes. The House of Lords Select Committee, the Parliamentary Animal Procedures Committee and the independent Nuffield Council on Bioethics all agreed that testing on animals is a scientifically sound method, has developed great results and is important for future advances (Pro-Test). Animal testing is viewed as the best option for medical progress, since it has had much success in the past. Robert Koch, a Nobel prize winner, conducted experiments on animals and stated, “Think you’re in the running for a future Nobel prize in medicine? You may want to consider using animals in your studies… More than two-thirds of all nobel prizes in medicine have been awarded for discoveries that involved animal research” (Hayhurst 21).

There are many different attitudes toward animal rights as well as environmental issues. Some of the attitudes focused on come from philosophical dualism, eastern thought, and Judeo-Christian-Muslim thought. Philosophical Dualism is philosophy that is focused on “the world of ideas”. This thought de-emphasizes the physical world, so the environment is not a concern. Eastern thought believes in the balance and harmony between humans and nature.

Is a human life worth the same as an animal’s life? Diseases that were once very deadly and killed millions, are now treatable with ease. Although animal testing is inhumane to the animals, it is beneficial to the human race because it is responsible for saving many lives that would likely not have been saved.

Animal rights is the idea that all animals are entitled to the possession of their own lives. It’s important to have animal rights because it prevents animals from living horrible, tortured lives for human benefit and entertainment. They have feelings and emotions too, they should be treated as humanely as possible at all times, they are not on this earth for human benefit and usage.