Animal experimentation

A difficult issue

Animal experiments are widely used to develop new medicines and to test the safety of other products.

Many of these experiments cause pain to the animals involved or reduce their quality of life in other ways.

If it is morally wrong to cause animals to suffer then experimenting on animals produces serious moral problems.

Animal experimenters are very aware of this ethical problem and acknowledge that experiments should be made as humane as possible.

They also agree that it's wrong to use animals if alternative testing methods would produce equally valid results.

Two positions on animal experiments

In favour of animal experiments:
Experimenting on animals is acceptable if (and only if):
suffering is minimised in all experiments
human benefits are gained which could not be obtained by using other methods
Against animal experiments:
Experimenting on animals is always unacceptable because:
it causes suffering to animals
the benefits to human beings are not proven
any benefits to human beings that animal testing does provide could be produced in other ways
Harm versus benefit

The case for animal experiments is that they will produce such great benefits for humanity that it is morally acceptable to harm a few animals.

The equivalent case against is that the level of suffering and the number of animals involved are both so high that the benefits to humanity don't provide moral justification.



Should we test on animals? 

Why do we even test?

I'm not really sure where I stand on the issue, but I'd much rather use a product I know wasn't tested on animals.
I've never understood why we even used animals in the first place because surely side effects could be different between an animal and a human?

Besides, there are plenty of child molesters, murderers and rapists living off the taxpayer's expense sitting comfortably in prison, maybe we could put them to good use.

I do feel as if it's wrong to test things on animals that can cause huge problems. Such as giving them cancers or deadly viruses. I do see it as a positive thing, as animal testing is usually done to try and improve our quality of life.

Without animal testing, I doubt we'd see half of the shampoos, beauty-products and medicines that we currently see  and use today.

So personally, I believe that Animal testing is a must for our survival.

Some key points:
• Modern anaesthetics, the tetanus vaccine, penicillin and insulin all relied on animal research in their development.

• Modern surgical techniques including hip replacement surgery, kidney transplants, heart transplants and blood transfusions were all perfected in animals.

• We share 95% of our genes with a mouse, making them an effective model for the human body.

• Smallpox has been eradicated from Earth thanks to research in animals.

• Thanks to animal research, primarily in mice, cancer survival rates have continued to rise.

You can read more here, hopefully the information stated is accurate.
http://www.understandinganimalresearch.org.uk/about-us/science-action-network/forty-reasons-why-we-need-animals-in-research/

Anthropomorphism at its best I think. I disagree with animal testing unless it's for medications to save people's life's, or cancer research etc. although in recent years the ethical guidelines for the testing of animals has become more strict, personally I wouldn't use anything that's been tested on animals either

Anthropomorphism at its best I think. I disagree with animal testing unless it's for medications to save people's life's, or cancer research etc. although in recent years the ethical guidelines for the testing of animals has become more strict, personally I wouldn't use anything that's been tested on animals either

Do you check everything first to make sure it hasn't been tested on animals?
Can't say I have given much thought to it and I'd still use products that have been tested on animals. Not using the products isn't going to stop the people testing so it doesn't make much difference.
Sure, it's wrong to test on animals, such as rabbits since they don't really blink and could cause many different problems. But would people rather they tested all products solely on humans instead? I remember when they tested some drugs on people and their neck and heads swelled up and went massive and looked like the elephant man.

I don't think it would be done if it wasn't necessary really. I agree with Cam about child molesters and murderers that we could test on to.

I don't like the thought of it happening but I just turn a blind eye to the whole thing, I don't check to see if things have been tested on animals either. Hopefully one day there will be an alternative.

It's like, I hate the thought of animals being killed for food for us, but me personally not eating meat isn't going to stop it. Just because I dodge the meat section at the store doesn't mean all those packets will still be there, someone else will buy it. So I mayaswell just eat it anyway.

For vital medication, I think we should do what needs to be done and preserve humans. Though, I really think we should focus on therapeutic cloning in research fields where it would be viable

From what I remember from my a level re, we did this subject. We have dominion over animals, this means that we are the protectors of Gods earth and therefore are ranked higher than animals in the pecking order. This allows some form of reason as to why animals are used for experimentation compared to humans. However, in my thoughts linking back to religion,god also gave humans stewardship. The idea that we are on earth to look after gods earth including nature, animals. We have a duty to not cause any suffering to anything that belongs to gods earth.therefore a reason against animal testing.

For me, being an atheist I don't agree with what I've just stated, but to me it does have some form of sense behind it

Quote from: X 0riginal on May 18, 2015, 21:38:17

Anthropomorphism at its best I think. I disagree with animal testing unless it's for medications to save people's life's, or cancer research etc. although in recent years the ethical guidelines for the testing of animals has become more strict, personally I wouldn't use anything that's been tested on animals either

Do you check everything first to make sure it hasn't been tested on animals?
Can't say I have given much thought to it and I'd still use products that have been tested on animals. Not using the products isn't going to stop the people testing so it doesn't make much difference.
Sure, it's wrong to test on animals, such as rabbits since they don't really blink and could cause many different problems. But would people rather they tested all products solely on humans instead? I remember when they tested some drugs on people and their neck and heads swelled up and went massive and looked like the elephant man.

Yes I do normally. And maybe they could use prisoners? I dno