Experimentation on animals in the twenty-first century has unearthed many great findings but also resulted in detrimental consequences to the lives of human beings today. A few positive results of animal testing include: new medicines, surgical procedures, cosmetic products, and many important medical discoveries. Some of these discoveries altered the way we, as humans, will live forever, but most of the experimentations performed to these animals constitute cruel and inhumane. For instance, the barbaric testing of animals in the medical and cosmetic industry causes the unnecessary suffering and death of millions of animals every year. The harsh horror inflicted upon laboratory animals may be easily avoided and replaced with more effective, moral alternatives.
In early 500 B.C., scientists such as Herophilus, Aristotle, and Erasistratus first utilized animal testing and began researching organs and systems of the human body. These scientists kept scripts of their vivisections, or the dissection of live organisms. These scripts tell the stories of detailed procedures of convicted felons in Rome. After a while, scientists of that era eventually changed to experimenting on animals after Roman law implemented prohibitions to the mutilation of the human body (Animal Testing). In the past, humans believed that animals did not think, conjure feelings, or suffer from the same type of pain as humans. Aristotle did not believe animals endured a thought process or intelligence and that animal justice, therefore, did not apply to them.
A few hundred years later, during about 150 A.D., a Roman citizen named Claudius Galenus, otherwise known as Galen, began dissecting animals in large crowds as a form of entertainment. As a profound philosoph...
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...able to create safer, more effective, and humane medications, chemicals, consumer products, food, and cosmetics.
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Both in and out of philosophical circle, animals have traditionally been seen as significantly different from, and inferior to, humans because they lacked a certain intangible quality – reason, moral agency, or consciousness – that made them moral agents. Recently however, society has patently begun to move beyond this strong anthropocentric notion and has begun to reach for a more adequate set of moral categories for guiding, assessing and constraining our treatment of other animals. As a growing proportion of the populations in western countries adopts the general position of animal liberation, more and more philosophers are beginning to agree that sentient creatures are of a direct moral concern to humans, though the degree of this concern is still subject to much disagreement. The political, cultural and philosophical animal liberation movement demands for a fundamental transformation of humans’ present relations to all sentient animals. They reject the idea that animals are merely human resources, and instead claim that they have value and worth in themselves. Animals are used, among other things, in basic biomedical research whose purpose is to increase knowledge about the basic processes of human anatomy. The fundamental wrong with this type of research is that it allows humans to see animals as here for them, to be surgically manipulated and exploited for money. The use of animals as subjects in biomedical research brings forth two main underlying ethical issues: firstly, the imposition of avoidable suffering on creatures capable of both sensation and consciousness, and secondly the uncertainty pertaining to the notion of animal rights.
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Over 100 Million animals are burned, crippled, poisoned and abused in testing labs every year. Animals are used to test the safety of products, advance scientific research, and develop models to study disease and to develop new medical treatments, all for the sake of mankind. Animals should not be used for scientific research because animal testing is inhumane, other testing methods now exist, and animals are very different from human beings. While animal testing has led to many life-saving cures, animal testing is cruel and inhumane because it involves inflicting pain and harm on the test subject to study its effects and remedies. Testing involves physically restraining, force-feeding, and depriving animals of food and water.
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Animals have always held a very special place in the hearts of the human race. They are our best friends, our stress relievers, members of our families, and our test subjects for experimentation. For hundreds of years, animals have been used in laboratory settings as a replacement for humans when studying the effects of medical treatments. On average, nearly one hundred million animals are used in clinical trials every year (Ferdowsian). These animals have contributed to hundreds of breakthroughs in the medical field including countless toxicity tests to determine drug toxicity to humans, and exposure to paralyzing anesthetics to create anesthesia used in surgical procedures today. These animals have been vital
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Throughout history, beginning as early as 500 BC, animals have been used to test products that will later be utilized by humans (“Animal Testing” 4), what isn’t publicly discussed is the way it will leave the animals after the process is done. Many innocent rabbits, monkeys, mice, and even popular pets such as dogs are harmed during the testing application of cosmetics, medicine, perfumes, and many other consumer products (Donaldson 2). Nevertheless, there are many people whom support the scandal because "it is a legal requirement to carry out animal testing to ensure they are safe and effective” for human benefit (Drayson). The overall question here is should it even be an authorized form of experimentation in the United States, or anywhere else? The fact of the matter is that there are alternatives to remove animals out of the equation for good (“Alternatives” 1). They are cheaper, and less invasive than the maltreatment of the 26 million innocent animals that are subjected to the heartlessness of testing each year (“Animal Testing” 4). All in all, due to the harsh effects of animal testing, it should be treated as animal cruelty in today’s society.
Peter Singer, an author and philosophy professor, “argues that because animals have nervous systems and can suffer just as much as humans can, it is wrong for humans to use animals for research, food, or clothing” (Singer 17). Do animals have any rights? Is animal experimentation ethical? These are questions many struggle with day in and day out in the ongoing battle surrounding the controversial topic of animal research and testing, known as vivisection. Throughout centuries, medical research has been conducted on animals.
Animals hold an important spot in many of our lives. Some people look at animals as companions, and others see them as a means of experimental research and medical advancement. With the interest of gaining knowledge, physicians have dissected animals. The ethics of animal testing have always been questioned because humans do not want to think of animals on the same level as humans. Incapable of our thinking and unable to speak, animals do not deserve to be tested on by products and be conducted in experiments for scientific improvement.
Every year, millions of animals experience painful, suffering and death due to results of scientific research as the effects of drugs, medical procedures, food additives, cosmetics and other chemical products. Basically, animal experimentation has played a dominant role in leading with new findings and human advantages. Animal research has had a main function in many scientific and medical advances in the past decade and is helping in the understanding of several diseases. While most people believe than animal testing is necessary, others are worried about the excessive suffering of this innocent’s creatures. The balance between the rights of animals and their use in medical research is a delicate issue with huge societal assumptions. Nowadays people are trying to understand and take in consideration these social implications based in animals rights. Even though, many people tend to disregard animals that have suffered permanent damage during experimentation time. Many people try to misunderstand the nature of life that animals just have, and are unable to consider the actual laboratory procedures and techniques that these creatures tend to be submitted. Animal experimentation must be excluded because it is an inhumane way of treat animals, it is unethical, and exist safer ways to test products without painful test.
Cosmetic animal testing has been a controversial topic for decades but has recently gained more attention from the media due to oppositional organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Those in favor of animal experimentation make the argument that they are taking animals’ lives to save humans’, but is it really necessary to subject animals to torturous conditions or painful experiments in the name of science? Animal experimentation needs to be abolished because it is unethical and selfish to destroy an animal 's life.