“The basis of all animals rights should be the Golden Rule: we should treat them as we would wish them to treat us, were any other species in our dominant position.” – Christine Stevens.
Every year, a number of animals are locked up and subjected to tests that cause them pain and sometimes even death. It is estimated that over 100 million animals are used in experiments, suffer and die in cruel chemical, drug, food, and many other testings. But, these tests help with major breakthroughs, ways to treat diseases, making medicines safe for humans, and many other things. Animal research should be eliminated in psychology because the pain, suffering, and deaths of animals are not worth the human benefits.
First, imagine spending your entire life as a hospital patient or prisoner, this does not even describe the stress for an animal in a laboratory. These animals can not control what happens to them, they can range from uncomfortable to agonizing to deadly. These millions of animals go under experiments that include new drug testing, implanting electrodes into the brain, blinding, and many other painful procedures. The protocol of this experiment can include severe suffering that is caused by long-term isolation, electric shocks, with-holding food and water or even separating infants from their mothers. Many of these experiments use restraining devices, which prevent an animal from moving. This can go from immobilizing certain body parts to the animals whole body. Some of these experiments are called “stress experiments”. These are mostly done on rats but these experiments include immobilizing the animal, by putting them in tubes, shocking their feet, forcing them to swim, to even suspending them by their tails. These experiments are claimed to have relevance to human anxiety and depression. In all of these situations severe stress is caused to the animal. These animals face this everyday and are kept in cages not able to express their natural behavior. Even though AWA and the IACUC system is there to ensure “humane” treatment in animal labs, the system is so limited and there are so many loopholes that give these animals little to no protection. Two of the most commonly used toxicity tests are the Draize test and the LD50 test, both are very well known because of the pain and suffering the experimental animals have to go through(Friedman 23). In the Draize test the substance or product being tested is placed in the eyes of an animal, then the animal is monitored for damage to the cornea and other tissues in and near the eye. This test is extremely painful for the animal and can cause blindness, scarring, and death. This test has been said to be unreliable.
Finally, animals have rights and they are being violated when they are being experimented on. Tom Regan, a philosophy professor at North Carolina State University, says, “ Animals have a basic moral right to respectful treatment… This inherent value is not respected when animals are reduced to being mere tools in a scientific experiment” (Orlans, 26). Animals, think, react, and experience pain just like people. “ Psychological experiments have also disclosed that chimpanzees have much more sophisticated problem- solving or analytic abilities than anyone expected. It appears that some of the intellectual tasks which they have mastered give evidence of a capacity to form and manipulate to some degree both mental images and concepts – to exercise visualization, some level of reasoning, and inventive ingenuity to achieve a desired goal.”(Fox 34). So, this shows that animals should receive the same respect or more then people do. But, instead there rights are violated and they are used in research and are not given a choice. These animals are faced with painful tests that can cause either permanent damage or death and are not given the option to not participate. Animals do not willingly want humans to test on them just so we can better ourselves and our technology. The reason why they are force to do this is because they cannot speak to us. Then there’s the moral idea of animal testing. That we are all equal. Just because there are drastic differences between two people that does not justify any differences in what their needs and interests are. “ The principle of equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat human beings.”(Harnack 21)
Sadly there are some ups to animal testing. Animal research has contributed greatly to many life saving cures and treatments. “Biomedical advances depend on research with animals, and not using them would be unethical because it would deprive humans and animals of the benefits of research” (Harnack 73). Scientists have learned from cats and dogs about how the nervous system works, not only that but they have learned about mental illness, memory disorders, drug addiction, and how the body’s sensory system and central nervous system work. These experiments are able to be done because the animals are in a controlled area. They have strict diets, exercise, etc. This makes the experiments more useful than human experimentation because the living systems of human beings vs animals are extremely complex. With animals scientists are able to evaluate drug side effects; you can not do this with computer models or cell cultures. The sacrifice of any animal is sad and unfortunate but it saves a human life.
Animals are also appropriate research subjects because they are very similar to humans, especially chimpanzees. Chimpanzees share 99% , mice share 98% , and dogs 84 % of DNA is shared with humans.(Harnack, 75). One experiment done on dogs showed and taught us “learned helplessness”. “More than 150 dogs were strapped into hammocks and subjected to painful electric shocks, which they could not accurately anticipate, control, or escape. Typically, sixty-four shocks of five seconds’ duration were used to prepare the dogs for an experiment. The experiment proper consisted of placing each dog in turn into a “shuttle box” in which it again received electric shocks. In the shuttle box, however, the dogs could escape the shocks by jumping a partition into a safe area. Seligman observed that compared with a control group of preconditioned dogs, which almost invariably and rapidly learned to escape the unpleasant stimulus, fully two-thirds of the preconditioned dogs simply gave up and layed down” ( Fox 101). This was a very accomplishing experiment. Seligman learned that helplessness is shown in animals and depression in humans. People go through the same experiences and lose hope when they lose something important.
I believe that animal testing should be completely eliminated. Animals have rights just like us. Being tormented and forced pain is not acceptable.
One real life example of animal testing is in the Department of Psychology at Northeastern University of Boston, led by Richard Melloni. This particular experiment was actually shut down and funds were removed which was a victory for animal enthusiasts. In this experiment they were injecting hamsters with anabolic- androgenic steroids and other aggression promoting drugs and then forcing them to fight each other. Since 1966, the experimenters have injected hundreds of animals with steroids, cocaine, and other substances, sometimes even drilling into their skulls and injecting the drugs straight into their brains.
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