How Are Human Beings Similar To Animals Essay

Animals are living beings, different yet similar to humans in many ways. Skin texture, teeth size, four legs instead of two, gills instead of lungs, and tails are some of the differences between human beings and non-human beings. These traits are physical, but once we dig deeper we can find great similarities. Some animals such as primates share many characteristics with us, they are the most cognitively aware of the animal kingdom, putting their intelligence in the same range with that of humans. Chimpanzees along with others of the sort have learned to communicate via sign language with not only others like themselves but with humans also. Often animals at the lower end of the food chain tend to get less recognition for their intelligent

Testing on humans is unethical, one would say because a human being is intelligent and aware of what is going on around them. Not only does sentience grant awareness, but also comes the ability to make conscious and rational decisions. Animals know when something is happening to them, the feeling of pain is very real just like if you or I were to have some variation of pain inflicted on us. The only difference is that the animal can’t verbalize the pain as we can, so somehow that makes it less real to humans. Animals also have interests; not feeling pain is an interest that we can all agree on to some degree that we have in common, human and nonhuman animals alike. “It would be nonsense to say that it was not in the interests of a stone to be kicked along the road by a schoolboy. A stone does not have interests because it cannot suffer. Nothing that we can do to it could possibly make any difference to its welfare. A mouse, on the other hand, does have an interest in not being tormented, because it will suffer if it is.” (All Animals Are Equal) Testing on animals causes suffering; labels on the back of tested products warn humans about harmful effects if swallowed or contact with skin, eyes, or mouth; these warnings are results of animals enduring pain. An objection to this claim is that the benefit of the research outweighs the pain and suffering of the test subject. According to utilitarianism

Having the right to consent would alleviate animal experimentation. The Animal Welfare Act was approved by the United States Department of Agriculture to protect animals of certain kinds. According to the first bill of this Act, only warm blooded animals are protected. (Animal Welfare Act) This is the only law that provides rights to animals. Under this law the animals are granted proper food, health care, and housing. However, the right to consent to being used as the subject for testing is not a right