Imagine the excruciating pain from being forced to be cut open for testing, would you have a say in it? No. Animals used in scientific research do not have the ability to speak up or save themselves from being put through extensive agonizing tests. It is proven that over a million animals die each year from animal testing. The excuse being “better animals than humans”, but it is not fair for people to decide who deserves to live or die. It is unethical and sickening to allow such crude and brutal tests to be done on innocent animals for self-preservation.
Rats are commonly used in medical testing, because they are mammals and have systems that should react like a human's. Most of the time however, the rats either die from the tests or are killed after so that scientists can look at the internal neurological effects. Some people argue that clinical testing on animals is justified, because the data may provide them with a cure for a major disease. During the Holocaust the Nazi's forced the Jews to participate in human experimentation. One of the tests conducted involved injecting patients with a chemical that would give them malaria, so that the scientists could attempt to find an immunization, more than half of the patients died. When news of this got out, people were horrified in the fact that Nazi's were using live, unwilling test subjects in their research. Their research was for a malaria vaccine, that is a good cause, yet it is looked upon as a completely sadistic torture method. How is it any different for animals? Most studies dedicated to finding a vaccine involve injecting disease that cause extreme pains into the animal’s bloodstream, yet people see this as okay and not torturous. The problem is that people see rats as vermin they can manipulate and test on, and not as living breathing beings that have a right to live.
There are alternatives to testing on animals that are in fact humane, cost efficient, and effective. All laboratories should make the switch to non-animal testing. Instead of testing on the actual animal, there are ways of studying cells grown in culture. If the purpose of a study is to find information for humans, then the skin being studied should be from a human, using skin left over from surgical procedures provides a way to analyze the rate at which a chemical can penetrate through the skin. With all of the alternative methods that can be used, there is no logical reason to continue the crass and inhumane tests on animals.
As said by Jeremy Bentham, an animal welfare advocate, "The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but rather, "Can they suffer?" It is immoral to allow animals to suffer in silence. Humans and rats both come from the animal kingdom; the only difference between them being rats cannot perform tests on humans or give their consent to participate in a study.
Andre, Claire. "Animal Testing and Ethics." Animal Testing and Ethics. Santa Clara University, 2010. Web. 20 Dec. 2012.
Knight, Andrew. "Animal Testing Isn't Just an Ethical Problem รข€“ Let's Invest in Safer Methods." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 12 July 2012. Web. 20 Dec. 2012.
O'Neill, Brendan. "The Pro-test Protesters." BBC News. BBC, 22 Feb. 2006. Web. 20 Dec. 2012.
