What Is Vivisection Is Wrong?

Imagine your pet spending an entire life in a locked cage where he or she is deprived of food and water, and force-fed chemicals from time to time. This is the life of animals in a laboratory. Live-animal experimentation, also known as vivisection, is not only unethical, but also cruel and unnecessary. In the article “Vivisection is Right, but it is Nasty- and We must be Brave Enough to Admit This”, Michael Hanlon claims vivisection is a moral necessity that without the use of animals in the laboratory, humans would not have modern medicine like antibiotics, analgesic, and cancer drugs (1). For example, Hanlon believes by sewing kittens’ eyelids together can aid researchers to study the effects of amblyopia in children (1). Conversely, the

Hanlon tries to justify vivisection with the use of pathos by painting a vivid picture about animals in laboratories live better lives and deaths than poultry farming animals (2). However, all animals that are tested in experiments or raised for food are subjected to torture and cruelty. Pointless cruelty and suffering to animals are excellent reasons why people should recognize that vivisection is unethical. Hanlon continues to support vivisection with the usage of logos by claiming that “1600 animals are slaughtered every second for food, most in conditions that do not bear thinking about, it does seem facile to be considering the ‘rights’ of thirty-one Welsh kittens stumbling around their pens in the dark” (2). It is important to note, animals kept in laboratories or farms are subjected to cruelty and pain; as a result of animals living in horrid conditions for the duration of their lives. In terms of animal rights, animals have the right to not feel pain or anguish, just like human

In fact, the genetic composition of animals is completely different from human, and there might be catastrophic results if a medication is given to a human being, even if the medication is tested safe in animals. In other words, animals exhibit a different genetic and physiology than human beings and when drugs, like HIV vaccines, are tested on animals the effect of the medication may translate differently in the human body. For instance, Hanlon gives an example of animal experimentation in which the Cardiff University done by sewing thirty-one kittens’ eyelids shut to study the effects of lazy-eye in children (1). The British Union of the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) argues against Hanlon’s claim that “cat brains and cat vision are fundamentally different to human and it is hard to see how anything useful can be gained by the research” (Hanlon 1), and experiments like sewing kittens’ eyelids together to study amblyopia have been done many years ago, and yet no cure has been found (Hanlon 1). Hanlon claim that many surgical procedures would be impossible without operating on animals in the laboratory, and fears that without animal experimentation, people would be used as guinea pigs instead (2). By focusing on surgical procedures done on animals, Hanlon overlooks the deeper issue that millions of animals have suffered and