Animal testing should be banned for a variety of reasons. One of the main reasons is cruelty. Another is that there is no real advantage to animal testing since animals are not equal to human beings. The third is that there is another widely available method that does not entail cruel treatment of animals.
Testing on animals, as well as the use of cognitive drugs on animals, is cruel and results in stress in the animals (DeGrazia, 691). They are locked in cages where they are poked and prodded for long hours. While animals cannot be compared to humans in terms of intelligence, it is proven that they are also intelligent by their standards. Most of the animals can be trained and display a character that indicates feelings of emotions, pain, and stress or fear (DeGrazia, 692). It is obvious and expected that animals are likely to get stressed when kept in cages all day alone and forced to face painful tests. On the contrary, animals should be left to roam freely and experience the healthy life they were born to enjoy. While they can neither speak nor express their feelings in words, they possess some intelligence. Hence, their rights should be safeguarded by eliminating unnecessary and inappropriate animal testing.
Other than cruelty in animal tests, there is no real significance in executing tests on animals and administering cognitive drugs. Since animal anatomy can be likened to, it is not homologous to that of human beings. This, therefore, means that no real findings can be obtained for human study through animal testing (DeGrazia, 690-691). The human anatomy is complicated compared to animals used in tests such as mice and rats. While people have similar body systems as mammalian animals, they do not share similar effects or reactions to medical tests (DeGrazia, 691). In an actual sense, the thought that human beings would portray the same results as animals can be dangerous.
Conclusively, it is a cruel act of testing on animals as it leads to fear, pain, and stress. The tests are also administered without the consent of animals. Such tests are significantly inconclusive since humans have different anatomy than animals. Therefore, the results obtained cannot reflect what would be expected in a human body. Lastly, there are other techniques available that provide more reliable and accurate results. Based on these arguments, it is conclusive that animal testing ought to be eliminated as it is ineffective and inhumane.
Work Cited
DeGrazia, David. “The 37 Ethics of Animal Research.” The Animal Ethics Reader (2016): 321.
