Animal Testing Does More Good Than Harm
PRO (9 arguments)
Links to more research:
This website is run by RDS (an organization in the United Kingdom) that advocates for the use of animal testing and experimentation in medical research. Using the navigation bar at the top of the site, you can look at animal research facts, medical benefits, animal welfare, hot topics,and more.
"The benefits of animal research"
This website will be helpful to the proposition side. The organization Seriously Ill for Medical Research advocates for animal experimentation. This page gives examples of diseases for which animal testing is helpful for research and treatment. Follow the links at the bottom of the page to get examples for different diseases.
Define:
Good than harm- as in what we should do to benefit the human race. Why only human? Because what are we, judge? Humans. Exactly.
Humans are creatures of evolution. In evolution, the natural order is to uphold the self-interests of the individual and the species. Therefore, exploiting other animals to advance human self-interests is consistent with the natural order of evolution, and thus ethical. It is only unethical to damage the interests of one's own species.
Most forms of animal testing do not inflict any pain on the animal. They may simply study the effects of a mild drug on an animal or simply test brain activity without cutting or harming an animal in any way. In consideration of this fact, it is inappropriate to call for abandoning all forms of animal testing. Certainly, there is no need to abandon the forms of animal testing that do no harm to animals.
Testing substances on humans without being aware of the potential dangers would be more unethical than testing animals. And, yet, we must perform tests on animals or on humans to advance life-saving medicines. Given a choice between testing humans and animals, it is better to choose to test animals.
Past experience has shown what invaluable advances can be made in medicine by experimenting on animals, and that live animals are the most reliable subjects for testing medicines and other products for toxicity. In many countries (e.g. the US and the UK) all prescription drugs must be tested on animals before they are allowed onto the market. To ban animal experiments would be to paralyze modern medicine, to perpetuate human suffering, and to endanger human health by allowing products such as insecticides onto the market before testing them for toxicity.
Joseph E. Murray, MD, 1990 Nobel Laureate and professor emeritus, Harvard Medical School. "Animal experimentation has been essential to the development of all cardiac surgery, transplantation surgery, joint replacement and all vaccinations."
This fits into the notion of "dominion" in important ways. It relates "dominion" to how we have evolved in the animal kingdom: we have become dominant naturally. To deny our dominance is to deny our natural position in the animal kingdom and the nature of the animal kingdom itself. It is also to deny the vary instinct that led to civilization and our ability to reflect on these matters; the instinct to succeed (ie. dominate). We should embrace both our natural dominance and our instincts to remain dominant, and consider them God-given (or Nature-given). This means accepting the notion of our having "dominion" over other animals.
Michael Pollan. "An Animal's Place". The New York Times Magazine. November 10, 2002
Human beings share over 99.4% of their genes with chimpanzees and about 99% with mice. It is instructive to consider that humans also share approximately 90% of their genes with cows. The physiologies of humans and these animals are very similar, with very similar organ and nerve systems. For this reason, it is useful and productive to study these animals as a means of advancing human sciences. The reactions of these creatures are a very good guide to possible reactions of human patients.
"Why do scientists use animals in research?". The American Physiological Society. Retrieved May 3rd, 2008
"Animals make good research subjects for a variety of reasons. Animals are biologically similar to humans. They are susceptible to many of the same health problems, and they have short life-cycles so they can easily be studied throughout their whole life-span or across several generations."
The potential human benefits of a particular animal test are typically weighed against the harms that it will entail for animals. Scientists are not wanton in inflicting tests on animals. Rather, they are often bound to meet specific ethical requirements in the trade-off. The harm of the testing must be thought "worth it" for the benefits that it will produce. animal research is justified because it has reducing human suffering.
“Primates are treated very specially in British law and by British scientists. Their use can be justified by advances to diseases of the brain, for example, but that does not mean any scientist can or should simply say ‘I want to inject something into the brain of a monkey.’" (Prof Nancy Rothwell, brain scientist)
Animals are used as pets and for work in the agriculture and police industries. In all of these cases, they are being exploited for certain human ends, without too much concern for their "rights". It should not be of major concern, therefore, that animals are being exploited experiments for human ends. And, given that the exploitation is aimed at saving human lives, it is possible to argue that the degree of exploitation could be even more sever than in other cases of animal exploitation where the human-interests are less compelling
Millions upon million of cattle are slaughtered every year for fast food restaurants, and there seems to be no problem with that. It's just when it happens in a lab, and when the animal isn't even suffering as much, that people start to complain and wear badges to give themselves an empty purpose in life, to "crusade for the animals!".
No organization can commission animal testing without being sensitive to understandable concerns about the issue in society. However, all responsible businesses have to ensure that their products are safe for their employees, customers, the wider public and the environment. New product developments have delivered many benefits to society, but they must be demonstrated to be safe.
"In the case of oil and chemical products, the use of animals for testing is required where there is no other way of establishing their safety. Although new testing methods have significantly reduced the number of animals used, animals are still needed for some safety testing." - Shell.com