Persuasive Essay On Animal Testing

How does it feel to not have any control over what is happening to you? You’re locked up in a laboratory to recover from the allergic reaction caused by a lotion that a cosmetics company was testing. You feel the pain and suffer through the night only to be tested on again the next day. It’s like a never-ending, vicious cycle. Unfortunately, various types of animals have been used for testing purposes as early as 500 BC (“Animal Testing”). In order to bring awareness to the cruelty of testing on animals, the history, problems, and alternatives that come with animal testing need to be discussed.
Using animals as testing subjects can be traced back to the times of Aristotle and Herophilus. Many of these scientists had different perspectives on the morality of testing on animals throughout history. Aristotle believed that animals were not morally significant; therefore, he thought that using them for testing purposes was totally justifiable. However, Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle, disagreed (“Animal Testing”). This is important due to the fact that animals can feel pain and putting them through suffering is immoral. Galen, an ancient Roman doctor and philosopher, often dissected live animals in public crowds. Similarly, Rene Descartes, a French philosopher of the sixteenth century, was known for doing the same. However, he acknowledged that animals could feel, but they did not have a thought process, eliminating their ability to process the pain (“Animal Testing”). The public awareness of the wrong-doing of experimentation on animals heightened in the nineteenth century due to people keeping domestic animals as pets. This set a new movement in motion, resulting in the creation of the Society for the Protection of Animals Liab...

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...he “limit test,” which calls for only six to ten animals in order to find the minimum and maximum toxicity (“Animal Protection & Legislation”). There are countless other alternatives to animal testing. Using these saves money for government-funded research, reduces the number of animals put through pain and suffering, and eliminates the risk of trying to transfer results from animals to humans.
Bringing awareness to the cruelty and facts behind animal testing brings it one step closer to reducing the number of animals used, and ultimately eliminating it all together. Being informed about the issues can also lead to more alternatives being discovered. You, too, can make a difference by donating to organizations fighting for the cause, purchasing products that are not tested on animals, and writing to companies that do test on animals about alternatives they may use.