This is a short essay on animal testing for children. It is deliberately written in simplified English. The ideas have also been simplified.
Animal testing is a tricky subject. People have strong ideas about it. There is a lot of animal testing. This means that most people agree that it is alright. But a lot of people think that it is cruel. The strength of feeling of people who dislike animal testing can result in them protesting and taking direct action by damaging laboratories.
You could say that it is wrong to do any sort of animal testing. If you don’t believe that, you should believe that it is wrong to test cosmetics on animals. This is because cosmetics are made to make people look more attractive. To put animals through pain and suffering for that reason must be wrong because looking good is not important enough. It is almost impossible to believe that anyone could accept animal testing of cosmetics. It is banned in Europe.
When animal testing is done in order to test new drugs which may save the lives of people then the discussion becomes more complicated. A lot of people would say that if animal testing saves the lives of people then it should be done. This is because the pain and discomfort suffered by the animals is outweighed by the benefits to people. This is a good argument.
But I don’t agree with the argument. Animal testing can only be accepted if it is believed that humans are superior to animals and that animals exist to serve people. A lot of people do not believe this. As humans become more civilised or advanced we understand that the belief that animals exist to serve people is wrong. This is partly because science tells us that animals are very much like humans. They feel pain, have emotions and can make friends. They can be sociable.
It is the natural arrogance of humans which makes them believe that they are superior to animals. If you put the arrogance to one side then is far more difficult to justify animal testing of any sort. If humans want to test new drugs which saves the lives of people then they should do it in a way that does not harm animals. A lot of testing of animals can be done using models which react like animals and computers rather than using live animals. These modern methods are becoming more accurate and can be superior to animal testing. Although this type of drug testing needs to be expanded.
Many animals are killed after drugs are tested on them. They are kept in cages and under emotionally sterile conditions. Animal testing is made more complicated because some of the animals are more advanced than others. People might think that it is okay to test drugs on mice but not cats. Sometimes apes have been used for testing. These animals are very similar to humans.
Also, sometimes drugs do not work in the same way on animals as they do on humans. Therefore the testing can be inaccurate and misleading. Big business does most animal testing. Their aim is to make money and not to be too concerned about the lives of animals that they test on. It would cost more to do testing in other ways. This is a reason why they don’t want to do it.
The fact is that in the future I would expect that there would be no more animal testing because better methods would have been created and people will become more civilised to the point where they understand the immorality of testing drugs and new products on animals for the benefit of humans.
If you look at the history of the relationship between humans and animals you can see a gradual change towards better animal welfare. It is a very slow process. As we have improved our relationship with animals in the past then it is fair to expect that we can continue to improve the relationship in the future. Therefore, I am confident that over the next century animal testing will become part of human history.
Note: this essay was written without reading books on the subject. If you can add to it or improve it, please leave a comment.
I have been against animal testing long before it became an issue. I had some heated discussions with my childrens’ teachers through the years and applauded my oldest child who stood up and gave a speech against testing her junior year in high school. I feel if a company wants to test-test on the animal that will benefit from the testing and that means the human animal! There are many medications and treatments that would mean the world to patients who would be glad to test if only they could.
A sports magazine from 2000 contains an essay by a well-known sports hunter who posed this question: it not ‘absurd’ to imagine that animals should have ‘rights without responsibilities?’
Which distills in all its pulchritude the mindset of every homo supremacist.
Setting aside that animals have been aching beasts of burden for thousands of years, forced to amuse the Dominionites in pits and arenas, (the Chinese train bears to ride bicycles) torn by projectiles, gavaged, starved, burned, beaten, flayed alive, crushed under spike heels, crucified, cloned, blinded, declawed, infected with cancers and viruses, made to ingest ulcerating and carcinogenic drugs, hybridized until they exhibit winsome deformities, sleep-deprived, parent-deprived, child-deprived, sunlight-deprived, movement-deprived, homeland-deprived, body-deprived (their brains, like Donovan’s, surgically detached and kept alive in vitro -Dead Body Live Brain, Orianna Fallaci, pampered as pets then tormented and killed in ancient rites, used to test products, smashed in trial crashes, strapped into harnesses, clapped into helmets and hurled into space, shipped off to wars, drowned in sacks and in experimental labs, pancuronium-vivisected, suffocated in bell jars and CO2 chambers, wired with explosives, dropped from unsurvivable heights, strangled with nooses, broken in traps, poisoned with slow-acting Coumadin, electrocuted and dissected,their minds destroyed in ‘learned helplessness’trials, butchered for food and for the sheer pleasure, yet all too often loyal toward and forgiving of us – and more caring of their young than many of us are caring of ours – does this sportsman mean, by extension, that children and helpless or damaged adults have no right to protection from what mankind has reveled in doing to animals from the day they discovered they could do it with impunity? Or is this too broad? Does he mean nothing more than that man’s natural rights are far too lofty for species less resplendent than ours? Instead of suggesting the rightness of wrongs, he might have explained how we can never atone, assuming we felt the need – which we do not, we SO do not – for our villainy toward animals from the dawn of human history.
Abusers who argue their acts fail to prove an animal’s right to be humanely treated think nothing of laying claim to the rung ‘just beneath the angels,’ never mind that an instinct for justice is their flimsiest qualification, their sturdiest being a will to prevail that pushes their own and every other species up against and over the edge.
The one glimmer of light? This drive is unheard of in any other animal on the scale displayed by the smartest of the lot. When ethical nihilism is their creed, they, not their victims, deserve to be targets within that toxic framework.
‘It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.'[Albert Einstein]
‘. . .the cruelty of human nature is so inexhaustible. . . ‘ [John Cowper Powys]
Part of the picture.
Another part?
Love in some natures, human and animal, ‘hath an unknown bottom like the bay of Portugal.’ [Shakespeare]
It hangs in the air in the waiting rooms of veterinary clinics and no-kill shelters. It animates dogs who refuse to leave their parent’s grave. You see it in soldiers who rescue four-footed comrades and four-footed starvelings from war zones and try, when their tour of duty ends, to bring them home with them. You see it in parents who refuse to leave their fur-children behind when natural disasters flood, crumble and blow away the landscape. In parents who weep so inconsolably over the death of their fur-child, their tear ducts look like Rabelaisian bungholes.
(Sorry footnotes are absent from the foregoing, of which there are many.)
Thanks Sylvia Ann for an amazing comment. I hope you and yours are well.
In 2001 Bayer based on post approval reports that their product Baytril ( enrofloxacin ) was casing blindness in cats ran a short animal study using cats to test the possible toxic effects of the increased dose. They could not and science should not rely on anecdotal evidence. The end conclusion was that more than 5mg/kg/per day for a cat put them at significant risk for retinal degeneration. It is the accepted protocol from that moment on. Very few studies beyond cats that were overdosed or had an actual adverse reaction have been studied. My Kitten was blinded and ultimately died of liver failure ( a now known issue with quinolones ). I’m not defending or bashing animal testing. But this one probably saved thousands of cats that while they may not have went blind with the higher dose were inadvertently saved from dying a horrible death by liver failure. I posted something to this effect on FB and got beat up because I do not have the proper beliefs to be an animal lover. I do not advocate massive testing for any reason that is not targeted and with the expectation there will be real results. BTW quinolones have been known to cause blindness in humans and many have been pulled off the market. The FDA recently issued a new warning in judicious use of these antibiotics which are failed chemo drugs. So it’s one thing to find something repugnant like animal testing and quite another to be so unrealistic to think it never has a place at the table.
That picture breaks my heart. I am physically ill just looking at it. Animals have feelings and emotions. Animals have souls. No animal should be used for testing, except in rare cases where the animal himself could benefit. The same world of science that has declared that animals feel pain needs to redeem itsef by banning all animal testing. It is a no brainer to me.