Every year, numerous humans utilize animals for testing purposes. Animal testing involves subjecting animals to various procedures or injections to observe their response to specific medical research objectives.
There are three significant justifications for why animals should not be subjected to testing with harmful or dangerous substances. Firstly, it is insignificant and unnecessary in the cosmetic industry. Secondly, animals possess rights and experience pleasure and pain similar to humans. Finally, testing is categorized as cruel and aberrant.
One reason for the triviality of animal testing in the cosmetic industry is that there are numerous alternative methods available to determine its potential harm to humans. Unfortunately, the testing procedures themselves inflict harm on innocent animals, often resulting in severe side effects. For instance, cosmetic companies subject bunnies to painful restraints and spray their eyes with cosmetics to observe any signs of redness, stinging, or even blindness. Similarly cruel tests are conducted on baboons, immobilizing them with head vices. Furthermore, animal testing extends beyond cosmetics to include the production of medications and health supplements by pharmaceutical companies. Shockingly, an estimated 17 to 22 million animals are used annually for medical research, but these figures exclude rats, mice, fish, and farm animals. Consequently, a staggering 90% of research animals remain unaccounted for in official statistics. With the availability of computer software materials offering identical results, it is needless to subject so many animals to unnecessary testing.
Animals also deserve rights because they possess intelligence and have feelings that should be considered. Although animal rights activists do not claim that animals are equal to humans in terms of morals, they argue that animals’ experiences and emotions should be taken into account. Animals live and navigate their lives similarly to humans by finding food, reproducing, and overcoming challenges. Despite lacking certain human qualities like complex language and sophisticated reasoning, animals possess intelligence in their own ways. For example, dolphins communicate with each other, and baboons use sticks as tools to gather ants. However, animals are often overlooked and exploited for various purposes, including medical research. Having rights means having a recognized entitlement or claim to something. Unfortunately, animals face two challenges. First, historical movements, such as women’s rights, the abolition of slavery, and the end of apartheid, have largely relied on the oppressed themselves to generate political momentum. Second, influential outsiders typically empathize with the oppressed because they can identify with them as fellow humans. Therefore, it is important to continue advocating for animal rights since animals suffer unnecessarily when alternative methods, such as software testing, can be used.
The final reason to advocate for animal rights is the cruelty and inhumanity of animal testing. Animals are subjected to painful experiments every day in the quest for finding cures for diseases. In 1984, at LaLoma Medical Center in California, a child received a heart transplant using a baboon’s heart but tragically died only two days later. This event was seen by some as a medical breakthrough, while others considered it an immoral act of combining human and animal body parts. Early instances of vivisection, where animals were dissectioned without anesthesia, not only provided insights into biological functions but also resulted in the deaths of numerous animals. The first kidney transplants were performed on hundreds of dogs before they were deemed safe for humans. Additionally, the University of Pennsylvania experienced a theft of 60 hours of videotapes from their medical lab, which showcased baboons being rendered unconscious with blows to their heads and having their heads fixed into plastic helmets during surgery. These videos also revealed instances where baboons woke up in the midst of brain operations.
The monkeys at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Institute in Maryland were subjected to radiation testing. They were exposed to different levels of radiation and forced to run on a treadmill. If they stopped running, electric shocks were administered to keep them moving. Some monkeys vomited during the experiments and received increasingly painful shocks to keep them going, with some of them surviving for more than five days.
In another experiment, dogs were used to study the relationship between smoking and lung cancer. These dogs were made to inhale smoke containing nicotine through a tube inserted into their throats.
While federal agencies have their own testing facilities, they also delegate testing to universities and commercial laboratories. The role of government regulatory agencies is to determine the “safe” amount of poison that can be absorbed by animals during testing, thus protecting corporations.
Disturbing images include chickens hanging by their feet on a conveyor belt that feeds them into an automatic throat-slicing machine. There are also baby male chicks struggling in a deep basket, trying not to be smothered before being ground into feed. Additionally, veal calves are raised in small crates that prevent them from turning around or walking, solely for the purpose of keeping their meat tender.
At the University of Pennsylvania, baboons are placed in vices and have their heads violently snapped around, causing some of them to experience seizures, become limp, or even die. The lab doctors stand around laughing at their suffering.We question whether these acts of burning puppies, sewing shut cat’s eyelids, and crushing baboons’ heads can be justified in certain experiments.
There is a test called the Lethal Dose 50 (LD50) test, which is primarily used to assess the potential danger of chemicals and new drugs. In this test, 100 lab animals are administered a dosage of the substance, and the dosage continues until 50 of the animals die. This is why it is called the Lethal Dose 50 test. The question arises whether it is necessary for animals to sacrifice their lives for testing chemicals and new drugs.
With the existence of various other options available for testing, albeit with their own limitations, it is imperative that animal testing be banned. The continuation of using animals for cosmetic testing is unjustifiable, as animals, like humans, possess certain rights and subjecting them to such experiments is both cruel and unusual. Countless innocent animals are utilized for testing purposes, enduring infections, contracting diseases, and in some instances, losing their lives due to our collective apathy towards addressing this issue.
