Franz Lanzel Abantao UI-FA2-BSCE2-1

GEN006: ETHICS ( FINAL EXAMINATION )

Animal Testing:Save the Animals: Stop Animal Testing

Introduction

Using animals in research and product testing has been a source of contention

for decades. According to information gathered by F. According to Barbara Orlans’

book, In the Name of Science: Issues in Responsible Animal Experimentation, 60% of

all animals used in testing are used in biomedical research and product-safety testing

(62). People have varying feelings about animals; some see them as companions, while

others see them as a means of advancing medical techniques or furthering

experimental research. Regardless of how people perceive animals, the fact remains

that animals are exploited by research facilities and cosmetics companies all over the

country and the world. Although successful animal research often benefits humans, the

pain, suffering, and animal deaths are not worth the potential human benefits. 

Body

First, animals’ rights are violated when they are used in research. Tom Regan, a

philosophy professor at North Carolina State University, states: “Animals have a basic

moral right to respectful treatment. . . .This Inherent value is not respected when

animals are reduced to being mere tools in a scientific experiment” (qtd. In Orlans 26).

Animals and people are alike in many ways; they both feel, think, behave, and

experience pain. Thus, animals should be treated with the same respect as humans.

Yet animals’ rights are violated when they are used in research because they are not
given a choice. 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. Regan further says, for example, that “animal [experimentation] is morally

wrong no matter how much humans may benefit because the animal’s basic right has

been Infringed.

Next, the pain and suffering endured by experimental animals is not worth any

potential benefits to humans. “An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience

perceived as arising from a specific region of the body and associated with actual or

potential tissue damage,” according to the American Veterinary Medical Association

(Orlans 129). Animals experience pain in many ways that humans do; in fact, their

reactions to pain are nearly identical (both humans and animals scream, for example).

Animals are subjected to painful and often fatal experiments when used for product

toxicity testing or laboratory research. Two of the most commonly used toxicity tests are

the Draize test and the LD50 test, both of which are infamous for the intense pain and

suffering they inflect upon experimental animals. In the Draize test the substance or

product being tested is placed in the eyes of an animal (generally a rabbit is used for

this test); then the animal is monitored for damage to the cornea and other tissues in

and near the eye. This test is intensely painful for the animal, and blindness, scarring,

and death are generally the end results.

 Finally, animal testing is completely unnecessary because viable alternatives are

available. Many cosmetic companies, for example, have looked for better ways to test

their products without using animals. Instead of testing on animals, The Body Shop, a

well-known cosmetics and bath-product company based in London, advocates the

development of products that “use natural ingredients, like bananas and Basil nut oil, as

well as others with a long history of safe human usage.” Computers have also been

used to simulate and estimate the potential damage that a product or chemical can

cause, and human tissues and cells have been used. In another case, in Cellular tests

are performed inside a test tube. All of these tests have been shown to be effective and

reliable substitutes for testing products on live animals. As a result, because effective

methods of product toxicity testing without the use of live animal specimens are

available, testing potentially lethal substances on animals is unnecessary

Conclusion

Animal testing should be prohibited because it violates the rights of animals,

causes pain and suffering to experimental animals, and other methods of testing

product toxicity are available. Humans cannot justify randomly torturing and executing

thousands of animals each year in order to conduct laboratory experiments or test

products. Animals should be treated with dignity and respect, and this right is violated

when animals are exploited for selfish human gain. Humans, after all, are animals.

Works Cited
 Against Animal Testing. The Body Shop, 1993.

Balls, Michael. “Time to Reform Toxic Tests.” New Scientist 134 (1992):31-33.

Orlans, F. Barbara. In the Name of Science: Issues in Responsible Animal

Experimentation. New York: Oxford UP, 1993.

Silcock, Sheila. “Is Your Experiment Really Necessary?” New Scientist 134

(1992): 32-34.