Animal Experimentation: Debatabase - Debate Topics and Debate Motions

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Summary: Is it morally acceptable to experiment on non-human animals to Discuss topic
develop products and medicines that benefit human beings?
Introduction
Author:Thomas Dixon ( United Kingdom ) Dr. Thomas Dixon is research fellow of Churchill College,
Cambridge.
Created: Wednesday, June 28, 2000
Last Modified: Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Context
For many centuries people have experimented on animals. There are two main reasons for doing this:
first, to find out more about the animals themselves, and, secondly, to test substances and procedures
to see if they are harmful (with a view to deciding whether or not they can be used on human beings). In
the second category fall cosmetic products as well as medicines and surgical techniques. There is a
growing consensus that it is not acceptable to test cosmetic products on animals. This debate is about
whether we should experiment on animals for scientific and medical purposes. The debate about the
pros and cons of animal experimentation (or 'vivisection') is one that elicits very strong emotions: animal
rights activists have resorted to trespass, violence, death threats, and hunger strikes in their single-
minded (and sometimes illegal) mission to end this practice.

Arguments

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Experiments on animals should be considered on a
case-by-case basis. The proper principle to apply,
however, is that the reduction of human suffering is
our first priority and the prevention of animal suffering
or death is secondary to that (although still important).
So that if there is a decent chance that an experiment
will result in an important medical breakthrough that
will reduce human suffering and death then it is
justifiable to allow animal suffering. Animal
experimentation is the (sometimes distasteful) means
to much greater ends.
Although in principle it is more important to reduce
human suffering that to prevent animal suffering, in
practice it is possible (and absolutely right) to keep
animal suffering to an absolute minimum. Animal
experimenters should aspire to the highest levels of
animal welfare in their laboratories, using anaesthetics
wherever possible and keeping animals in clean,
comfortable, and healthy conditions. In short, it is
possible to experiment on animals without being cruel
to animals.
Cons
Animals have the right to be treated as beings of value
in themselves, not as the means to human ends; this
principle must be applies in order to guarantee the
end of cruelty to animals. The application of this
principle means that animals should never be
experimented upon whatever the potential gain for
humanity. To infect monkeys with the AIDS virus or to
expose rodents to toxic chemicals and radiation is
simply not acceptable, whatever the supposed
benefits.
In practice, as everyone knows, animals are not
routinely treated well by animal experimenters. Apart
from the fact that millions of animals die each year in
experiments, others are often not adequately
anaesthetised and are abused by handlers and
experimenters. It is idealistic to suppose that this will
ever stop as long as society endorses vivisection.

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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 paralyse 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.
In fact few breakthroughs have been made as a result
of animal experimentation - its advocates have
overstated its achievements. There has been a
catalogue of errors and failures in animal testing,
which its advocates gloss over; as many as half the
drugs that have been approved in the US and the UK
after animal testing have subsequently had to be
withdrawn because of harmful side-effects.
Furthermore, there are alternatives to many tests that
are currently done on animals - e.g. growing tissue or
cell cultures from human cells in the laboratory.

Human beings share about 99% of their genes with In fact, most animal experiments are done on animals
chimpanzees and only slightly fewer with other that are nothing like human beings - rats and mice -
monkeys. As a result, the reactions of these creatures which undermines the argument that these
are a very good guide to possible reactions of human experiments are a reliable guide to human reactions.

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Animal Experimentation: Debatabase - Debate Topics and Debate Motions

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patients. Even lower down the scale, other animals
share the same basic physiology with humans.
Furthermore, it would be immoral to risk the life of a
human being when a medicine or procedure could
instead be tested on a non-human animal.
There are indeed new issues raised by the advent of
genetic engineering and 'transgenic' animals; these,
like all animal experiments should be closely
monitored so as to minimise animal suffering. The fact
that there are new issues here does not mean that
there should never be any experiments on animals.
Scientifically, as well as morally, most animal
experimentation is to be rejected - the reaction of a
mouse to a substance is no guide to human reactions.
Each species has its own unique physiology. And the
more similar an animal is to a human being - e.g. a
chimpanzee - the more intelligent and sentient it is,
and so the more immoral it is to treat is as a
disposable and worthless biological object.
The advent of genetic technologies has made possible
all sorts of new and horrific acts of animal
exploitation, from cloning sheep to creating mutant
and hybrid creatures with no dignity or quality of life at
all. We should end animal experimentation before
things get even worse.

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What is often overlooked in this debate is the subject It is only acceptable to test human medicines on
of veterinary medicine. It is in the interests of animals human beings if they give their consent. Non-human
themselves that experiments be done on animals to animals are never able to give such consent. It is
test medicines and surgical procedures for using on therefore never acceptable to test medicines on
animals themselves, not just on humans. Animal perfectly healthy animals, even if the treatments are
experimentation can be in the interests of animals as for use on other animals.
well as of humans.
Motions
This House Would Experiment on Animals for Human Benefit
This House Puts People First
The House Would Break the Law to End Vivisection
Useful Sites
The Animal Rights FAQ: Laboratory Animals
Animal Aid: Campaigns
PETA: Campaigns: Animal Experimentation
PETA: Factsheet Index
Experimentation-Animale - English language version
Medical Research Modernisation Committee: A Critical Look at Animal Experimentation
BBC audio on animal experimentation
Scientific American article on technological alternatives to animal testing
European Biomedical Research Association
Defence of vivisection by a leading British scientist
Understanding Animal Research
Useful Books
Animal Experimentation: Cruelty or Science
By: Nancy Day
Animal Experimentation
By: David Haugen
What Will We Do If We Don't Experiment On Animals? Medical Research for the Twenty-first Century
By: Jean Swingle Greek, C. Ray Greek
Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions
By: Cass R Sunstein (Editor),
Editor: Martha C. Nussbaum
Animal Liberation
By: Peter Singer
Vivisection. The Royal Society For the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the Royal Commission
By: Royal Society For the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

Themes
Moral and Religious

Discuss
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Author Post

rasp807 Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 07:37 am

Member
Animal experimentation is a form of abuse to those animals. They are being killed to
be a target of drugs and other experiments for selfish reasons of human. Animals
should have the rights as human and should not be subjected to harmful

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Animal Experimentation: Debatabase - Debate Topics and Debate Motions

experimentation without consensus(which can not be given by animals and that is

why human takes advantage of it). In addition, reaction from animals do not exactly
equal that of a human. Even after animal experiments, human could suffer different
side effects. By using animals to test something created by human, we are saying
that human lives are superior than that of animals. If these experiments were done to
dogs and cats, more people would be offended because they are closer to human
lives as pets. All animals should be treated equal and they should be free from
danger.

ellie-y Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 05:21 am

Member
I agree with animal experimentation. Con side puts the moral problem into debate,
however, can we insist on the moral? We eat the meat of beef, chicken and pork and
wear animal fars.If we really have to think about the problem of moral and animal
rights, what we have to prohibit is not only animal experimentation but to eat animal
meat and wear furs. I don't think every human beings can agree with it. In addition,
we have no alternatives if we prohibit animal experimentation. If we don't use animals
such as rat for exerimentations, what can we use? Does conside think we should use
human body in stead of animals? I think no one offers to be used of experiments in
stead of animals. That means all of us accept animal experimentation.

Nao OKADA Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 11:31 pm

Member
I definetly refuse the idea of animal experimentation. There are some reasons. First,
every animals has the right to live and to be treated properly as well as humanbeings.
And it is not fair to treat animals as a way to experiment new products such as
medicine or cosmetics, because animals cannot say anything about it. Second,
animals which are used in those experimentations such as rats of mouse are
scientifically different from humanbeins. So in many cases, animal experimentatons
fail in the end. Finally, these days we can use some alternatives to use in
experimentations instead for animals, such as tissue or human cells. And many
experimentations using these things succeeded so far.

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