Institutionalized Animal Abuse

Animal vivisection is the study, experimentation and research of any animal. Animal rights activists are opposed to using animals for medical research and experimentation because humans do not have the right to use animals. With very few exceptions, we do not experiment on humans without their consent. Animals can’t give informed consent and the vast majority of experiments using animals are so invasive and damaging, that we would never even consider allowing humans to being subject to such experiments. Every year, animals are dissected, infected, injected, gassed, burned and blinded in hidden laboratories all over the world, most of the time without anesthetic or pain killers. If they aren’t killed by the testing, the animals are often not kindly but brutally killed. The dead animals are frequently left stacked in wheelbarrows in front of the animal cages.

Research facilities also have very few restrictions on lab workers. The Animal Welfare Act does not give the facilities any restraints for their employees. “No legal requirements for researchers to consider alternatives to their use, nor provide them with relief from the pain, distress, or even the most basic slanderers of care.”(Neavas1) “Though most are qualified scientists, they do not have to provide a quality of care which is inhumane to the animal.” (Neavas 2) The laboratories that these animals are stuck in may be unsafe and unclean. The animals live in small, dark cages and are forced to live that way their entire lives. Animals should be able to ram free and should not be kept locked away in cages until they are needed. “Under the Animal Welfare Act, research institutions are required to establish an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee “to oversee and evaluate all aspects of the institution’s care and use program.”(Neavs1) “While the United States Department of Agriculture and the Animal Welfare Act and Institutional Animal Care and Use systems purport to ensure” humane “treatment of animals in labs, the system is plagued with loopholes that leave animals

“Would we imprison our children in cages too small for them to move? Would we violate our sisters and steal their babies? Would we deliberately infect our friends with diseases and leave them untreated? Of course not so why would we do the same to animals? We must abandon the archaic and incorrect boundary of “human,” which we use to justify the ongoing massacre of billions of beings (PETA)”. According to the New England Anti-Vivisection Society, “There is an estimate of 100 million animals that are burned, crippled, poisoned, and abused in laboratory testing every year. “Most animals in laboratories never will experience fresh air or sunshine, only bars and concrete sound more like a prison well that’s just the beginning of what animal’s experience. There are few facilities that provide some outside caging, and they typically rotate the animals, giving them limited and infrequent amounts of time outdoors. Standard lab conditions, such as small, crowded cages, lack of enrichment, loud noises, and bright lights are all known to create stress in animals. When it comes to animals and their rights, there is a fine line between our needs and taking advantage of these animals just because we consider them to be inferior (NEAVS).”

The Animal Welfare Act (AWA) is the only federal law that gives protection to warm -blooded animals in research laboratories. Under this law, it is the researchers’ job to make sure that they provide these animals pain relievers, provide them with the best veterinary care, housing, and food. This law only protects ten percent of the lab animals. The rest of the ninety percent of animals in labs aren’t protected: rats, mice and birds. This means legally the researchers do not have to provide these unprotected lab animals with decent care at all. Researchers can choose to treat these unprotected animals however they want and with as many rats, mice and birds as they please. Knowing how unfair the Welfare Act is towards the many lab animals it should be protecting, the voters should inform and show concern to their legislators in order to stop the mistreatment of these animals. The Animal Welfare Act should protect all animals being tested in research laboratories.

Every year, more than 100 million animals are poisoned, crippled, burned, or abused in United States labs alone. The Animal Welfare Act, or AWA, was passed in 1966 and is the only federal law in the U.S. today that regulates animal treatment in research. That being said, the AWA is not heavily enforced. Additional, the regulations it includes are extremely minimal and do not protect any type of reptiles, amphibians, rats, mice, or birds, meaning that more than ninety percent of the animals being tested on are still submitted to painful and torturous tests. These tests often result in a lifetime of pain and damage because after the tests, the animals are placed back in their cages without any medical treatment and are often used in further

You may think of animal testing and picture a wet bunny all beat up and shivering in a cold barren cage. However, this is not the case, for the law requires that the lab animals are housed in an environment appropriate for their species and are well cared for (Institute for Laboratory Animal Research, 2011). Animals tested on in a laboratory can actually adapt with minimal stress and are provided with everything they need by highly trained professionals. Animal care standards in a testing facility are, more often than not, better than those at shelters, pet stores, even farms. However, I do not wish to neglect the test animals’ discomfort, for

Animals in animal research and testing alike receive the highest standards of care, enforced by the law. Every animal research center worldwide give animals playtime, food, water, exercise, and make sure they’re loved and healthy. Also, all facilities involved with animals have a set of rules to follow called “the 3 R’s” replace testing on animals when possible, reduce number of animals in testing to a minimum, and refine pain received by animals to a minimum. Animal researchers even use painkillers and analgesia on animals to reduce pain. Animal testing is not

The lab animals are always being observed and treated. The lab animals may experience “blinding, cutting, piercing, burning, freezing, force-feeding, starvation, electric shock, isolation, or other stressful conditions” (Dove). While these conditions may be cruel and harsh, it’s important to remember that each procedure is for a reason. The treatments endured by the animals are in hopes of creating a better outcome for humans. Each condition listed above is used for people with “smoking, vision, pain, hearing, impotence, and other medical conditions” (Dove). The tests performed on animals will help those battling illnesses and life threatening diseases. The overall experiences that animals endure are creating a healthier life for

Unfortunately today there are many cases of animal abuse happening around the world. Animal cruelty or animal abuse can be defined as the infliction of suffering or harm upon animals for purposes other than self-defense. There are many different types of abuse such as using animals for research, using animals for entertainment purposes, abandoning animals to shelters, and animal neglect. We need to raise awareness and find a solution to these issues. Animals are suffering and we need to help them.

To begin with, animal experimentation subjects innocent creatures to immense physical and psychological agony through the employment of abusive, inhumane procedures. Currently, an approximate 26 million animals in the United States alone undergo trials and experiments devised to ascertain the efficiency and overall safety of products developed for human use (“Animal Testing”). In a futile attempt to prevent the immoral treatment of animals in scientific laboratories, the government enacted the Animal Welfare Act several years previously, granting marginal protection to a handful of sentient species. However, the Animal Welfare Act excludes nearly 99 percent of animal species commonly used in scientific studies, thereby enabling scientists to experiment on creatures such as birds, mice, fish, and other cold-blooded species without interference from the law (“Animal Testing 101”). Consequently, in order to test commercial

Animals are treated unreasonably. When we are testing animals we don’t even give them painkillers. So they just sit there in pain. In the labs it’s legal to do whatever you want to the animals. So they might not be even testing. It’s being

Many people voice their opinions that animal testing is beneficial towards medical research, without stopping to think about the abuse these animals are experiencing. One major form of animal testing in modern medicine is vivisection, which is the practice of performing scientific or medical experiments on live animals. Vivisection is one of the worst methods of institutionalized animal abuse in our society, and is authorized and legal. Considering the fact that it is found unethical and illegal to expose human patients to new medicines, without positive benefits and guaranteed safety, isn’t it strange that these laws don’t apply to voiceless and innocent animals that are left to suffer and die? Animals are never given any ethical justification, “Nor is there moral justification for the statement that the relations of scientific men to animals should be under any laws or restrictions save those general ones which regulate the behavior of all men so as to protect animals from cruelty,” (Dewey

Researchers have regulations they must follow since the passage of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). “The Animal Welfare Act was signed into law in 1966. It is the only Federal law in the United States that regulates the treatment of animals in research, exhibition, transport, and by dealers.” Some of the regulations are as follows: “to have an attending veterinarian to provide adequate veterinary care, requires appropriate housing, feeding, handling, sanitation, ventilation, and sheltering of all animals used in

All laboratory animals fall under the Animal Welfare Act, which promotes animal welfare of research and laboratory animals and promotes anti-cruelty laws. Currently, according to American Association for Laboratory Animal Science, (AALAS) animal welfare and assess laboratory animals’ pain and distress is conducted by a trained laboratory

Vivisection is the practice of performing operations on live animals for the purpose of experimentation or scientific research. Due to this being legal, there are very slim rules for what cannot be done inside a lab. In the United States of America, over twenty-five million animals are used for experimentation, product and cosmetic testing, and scientific research. There are many different kinds of animals in labs; dogs, cats, chimpanzees, pigs, and sheep, but the majority of the animals are rats, mice, and birds. The lives of animals in a lab can be compared to that of a human being institutionalized or imprisoned. The animals in labs often live a very stressful, unnatural life of deprivation and confinement. Animals are subjected to many types of testing in labs. They are being infected with diseases to test new drugs, long term social isolation, blinding, burning of their skin, and these are all things that people find very unethical. “The question is not, can they reason, nor, can they talk. But, can they suffer?” (Bentham).