Animal Testing
This is a 6-page argumentative essay about animal testing, why is bad and all that stuff. I attached a paraphrase/citation exercise that we had to do.
Montserrat Pedroza
Dr. Celia Carlson
Writing 122
18 April 2021
Quotation/Paraphrase Exercise
Animal testing has been around for many years, and throughout the years this testing has caused a lot of damage to many innocent animals. Is even animal testing necessary? In the article “Save the Animals: Stop Animal Testing” from Lone Star Colle explains the damage that animals have to go through and all the pain they get form getting tested. In the article says that “Animals are subjected to tests that are often painful or cause permanent damage or death, and they are never given the option of not participating in the experiment” (Save the Animals: Stop Animal Testing). The article explains two specifics test that animals are summited to, which are the Draize and LD50 tests, both of them are very painful, they monitored the animals to see the results of the test which end up killing the animals, and these two tests have no justifications to perform them on animals (Save the Animals: Stop Animal Testing). Animal testing is unmoral and unnecessary in many cases, they make animals suffer for no ethical, reasonable or justifiable reason.
Works Cites
“Save the Animals: Stop Animal Testing”. Lone Star College.
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ANSWER
Animal Testing
Over the years, many animals have been used in testing and research, including medical devices, drugs, cosmetics, chemicals, households, and personal care products. However, the environmental consequences of animal testing have been inadequately addressed. This paper will argue against the use of animal testing for advanced medical and experimental research. The death of animals, pain, and suffering is not worth the possible human benefits from the experimental research. Therefore, animal testing should be avoided since its unnecessary, cruel, bad science, morally wrong, unethical, and violates animal rights.
The manipulation of animals in testing for human benefits, such as the advancement of cosmetics and human medicine, has been described as a complicated and controversial issue. The issue of animal testing has grown to the extent that animal rights advocates are fighting to prevent the exploitation of animals during testing. Millions of rats, cats, dogs, rabbits, and primates have been locked in barren cages in laboratories globally. These animals suffer and languish in pain due to extreme frustration and administration of drugs and chemicals that at times lead to death (Jecker, Nancy, 168). These tests can be used to find cures, products, medicines, or observe the behavioral psychology of the animals. However, these processes have induced pain and reduced the quality of life for these animals. Evidence shows that animals for testing and disposals associated with chemicals and drug supplies have greatly affected biodiversity (Akhtar, 408).
Animals are being misused and demoralized in scientific experiments for the benefit of human beings. Suprisingly, people have different perceptions of animals. Some may look at animals as their cohorts, whereas others may perceive animals as experimental. Most of the experimenters have argued that the animals are protected under the animal rights laws and laws of experimentations. However, millions of animals are still suffering due to cruel and unnecessary research (Summer, 7). For instance, the tobacco industry experimenters have dogs and mice forced into smoking masks where they inhale the tobacco fumes. This has negatively impacted the lives of these animals in tests that are merely not helpful.
According to an article (BBC) regarding animal testing, the animal experimenters know the ethical problems and recognize that experiments should always be done as humanely as possible. The article extends to state that experimenting with animals is always deplorable since it causes suffering to the animals. Ideally, the benefits that human beings gain from animal testing can be obtained through using other methods.
Considerably, the basic principle of the modern animal rights association is that any non-human animal has fundamental interests that warrant consideration, acknowledgement, and protection. Regarding animal rights, it is clear that animals are allowed to possess their basic interests and existence, such as similar considerations and interests as human beings that need to eliminate pain and suffering. Animals have the fundamental moral right to respectful treatment. Therefore, these basic rights give the animals both legal and moral rights.
The inherent value of this basic moral right fails to be respected once the animals are subjected to tests and experiments (Liebsch, 842). Animals and human beings are identical in many ways since they think, feel, experience pain, as well as behave. Most animals, particularly the higher mammalian, have internal organs and systems identical to the functions and structures of human organs, thus having similar needs, goals, and desires comparable to human functions. Therefore, animals ought to be treated with respect as human beings.
Ideally, acknowledging the doctrine of animal rights means eliminating experiments and tests on animals. Animal rights are violated when animals are used in tests, experiments, and research since they are subject to pain and permanent death or damage. They are not offered the option of denying to participate in the experiment. Animal rights groups have illuminated occurrences that violate the animal rights, such as the test in Louisiana State University. The researchers shot hundreds of cats on their heads to examine how the breathing system is impaired. This account shows the misery experienced by animals. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals found out that more than 100 million animals suffer and experience pain due to being sentenced in laboratory cages (Engel, 213).
Animal testing is unkind and cruel since it takes different forms of bad science. An article from Lone Star College on “Save the Animals: Stop Animal Testing” has explained the damage and pain of experience that animals encounter during the tests. For instance, the Draize skin and eye irritancy tests have been used to predict irritation and human ocular in products over the years. During the test, rabbits are restricted where they are denied the freedom to move or react. The chemicals or even acids used in products are then placed on the eye of the rabbit. The substance causes irritation, redness, blindness, or ulcers to the animal. The rabbits are then examined after some time while suffering and extremely uncomfortable.
The majority of the animals are thrown away and killed after collecting the results and serving their purposes. This is because the animals’ lives are not respected and considered valuable. Additionally, there is no requirement that the animals should be offered pain-relieving drugs after the process. Lethal Dose 50 has been common in examining for acute toxicity. These chemical tests lead to the death and suffering of animals, where fifty percent of them die while others are left to experience pain, convulsions, seizures, and loss of motor ability. The LD50 tests are not scientifically justifiable. The test offers an illusion due to uncontrollable biological variables.
Animal testing has resulted in the mistreatment and torture of animals that distract their normal lives. Animals are forced to inhale toxics, their skins burned off, holes drilled into the skulls, or their spinal cords crushed, thus undergoing torture (Szumer, 8). These tests seem counterproductive and useless since they live animals in misery. Considerably, the animal tests cut off the animals’ normal lives, which they should live. Most of these animals have been forced into cages where they are expected to spend most of their lives. Unfortunately, without stimulation, socialization, and happiness, the animals used for testing tend to suffer from continued stress and lack of control of their lives due to denial of natural freedom, meaningful to their lives.
The overall reliance on animals in tests has resulted in needless loss of lives. Too often, scientists have poorly planned their projects to test new drugs for illnesses, resulting in killing and wasting animal lives (Robin). They underestimate the number of animals that are required to conduct the test for new medicine. Therefore, the unreliable tests indicate that animal testing is wasteful since the lives of animals involved in the test are lost or damaged (Robin). Relatively, animals do not acquire diseases that humans get. Therefore, most of these infections are artificially prompted in animals during testing to resemble human disease.
The scientists fail to consider that some of the human diseases result from various human conditions such as socioeconomic factors, genetics, varying personal encounters, and psychological issues. Some of the treatments are promising to the animals but rarely work for human beings. Therefore, animal lives are wasted with great suffering. It would be more accurate to conduct tests using well-controlled clinical trials than using animals only to receive negative side effects, which will demand a repeat process.
Morals and ethics argue that the lives of all creatures, whether big or small are worthy of respect and have value. Painful experimentation on animals should be curtailed or halted since pain is an intrinsic evil. Any action that results in suffering and pain to another creature is morally impermissible. For instance, scientists that force rats to decide whether starvation or electric shocks to see if they develop ulcers understand that the rats have nervous systems and experience pain much like humans. Considerably, if it is morally wrong to inflict pain and suffering on a human being, then it also wrong to cause suffering and pain on animals.
Ideally, animals do not willingly accept participating in the tests or the advancement of technology and benefits to human welfare. Most of the decisions are made by their exploiters, who vocalize their own choices and preferences. No scientist should accept the use of animals in tests and cause unnecessary pain if they can be avoided. For instance, it is unethical and morally wrong to kill 100 million feeling and thinking animals or cause unintentional pain and suffering. Therefore, no matter how much human beings benefit from animal tests, these activities are morally wrong since basic animal rights are violated.
Most experimenters argue that animal testing will offer great benefits for humanity. Animal testing is done to test the safety of products as well as save humanity. They believe that animal testing has brought about life-changing discoveries from new medicines, transplant procedures, blood transfusions, medicines, and beauty products (Hajar, Rachel, 42). However, this perception has been outweighed by the ethical issues and moral problems linked to animal testing. Animal testing has led to suffering and pain, which do not provide moral justification. Arguably, improving human well-being should not be used to justify the reason for exploiting and torturing animals. The value that people place in the lives of other beings should be extended to animals. Animals are not lower species since they lack the capacity to knowing exercise their rights. Considerably, the benefits that human beings gain from animal testing can be produced through other methods.
Technological advancements have made it possible to use different tests that have been developed to replace the use of animal testing (Prior, 30). For instance, artificial cell cultures have been used to perform tests. Relatively, computers devices have estimated and simulated the probable threat and damage that a chemical or product can lead in human cells and tissues and the harmful substance effects on human beings. These devices have synthesized every type of cell in animals, humans, and laboratories, which has provided an amazing testing method without harming the living creatures.
Research with computational methods, virtual experiments, human volunteers, and Vitro tests based on human tissues and cells has offered human benefits (Mushtaq,161). This has also facilitated non-animal testing, which over time has shown to be more accurate than animal testing. Ideally, modern research and experiments require a different outlook that is more compassionate, creative, and embraces ethical science. Human well-being and health can also be facilitated by adopting non-exploitive methods of testing to prevent environmental degradation and loss of life.
Conclusion
In summation, animal testing should be disregarded since it damages life, violates animal rights, causes suffering, pain, and loss of life to the animals. Animal testing is unethical, morally unacceptable, unnecessary, and wasteful of life since it damages the quality of life of these animals. Vivisection and tests such as the Draize eye test and Lethal Dose 50 have become a form of torture and lead to suffering and pain for unjustifiable reasons. Pain is pain and has equal intensity and duration. Therefore, claiming that it’s important to avoid human pain more than animal main is a meager prejudice. Millions of animals have continued to die in the name of animal testing, although more alternatives can be used for testing and experiments, such as Vitro testing and computer modeling. Experiments relying on animals are not meagrely beneficial since they may fail to improve human life. Animals need to be respected and treated with dignity since they have a right to decent life like any other living creature.
Works Cited
“Save the Animals: Stop Animal Testing.” Lone Star College. 2021. Retrieved from: https://www.lonestar.edu/stopanimaltesting
Akhtar, Aysha. “The flaws and human harms of animal experimentation.” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 24.4 (2015): 407-419.
BBC. Ethics Guide. Experimenting on animals. (2020). Retrieved from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/using/experiments_1.shtml
Engel Jr, Mylan. “The commonsense case against animal experimentation.” The ethics of animal research: Exploring the controversy (2012): 213-36.
Hajar, Rachel. “Animal testing and medicine.” Heart views: the official journal of the Gulf Heart Association 12.1 (2011): 42.
Jecker, Nancy S. “Animal subjects research Part I: Do animals have rights?.” Clinical Ethics in Anesthesiology: A Case-Based Textbook (2010): 168.
Liebsch, Manfred, et al. “Alternatives to animal testing: current status and future perspectives.” (2011): 841-858.
Mushtaq, Saima, Yavuz Kürşad Daş, and Abdurrahman Aksoy. “Alternative methods to animal experiments.” Türkiye Klinikleri. Tip Bilimleri Dergisi 38.2 (2018): 161-170.
Prior, Helen et al. “Reflections on the progress towards non-animal methods for acute toxicity testing of chemicals.” Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology 102 (2019): 30-33.
Robin, M. Scientists Told to Stop Wasting Animals. The Guardian. 2015. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/apr/18/animal-lives-wasted-in-drugs-safety-tests
Summer, Zacharias. “Animal testing.” Arena Magazine (Fitzroy, Vic) 127 (2013): 7-9.
