Animal Experimentation: More Harmful Than Helpful

Throughout the history of the United States, the atrocity known as animal experimentation has been a recurring social issue. Every few years an uproar of support or opposition will bring the argument over the viability of animal testing back to the surface. Animal experimentation itself is not a new form of research. Reporters Kerry Fehr-Snyder and Bill Hart from the Arizona Republic explain that animals have been used as test subjects since the time of the Greeks and Romans because human dissection was not allowed (Fehr-Snyder and Hart). Today animals have remained in use because it is not safe to test potentially harmful products on human volunteers, unfortunately forcing animals to become the accepted human analogues (models) in the scientific community.

Many people began to protest the use of animal experimentation once they learned what the cruel testing entailed. According to an "Animal Experimentation Timeline", "in the late 1800's, a surge of anti-animal experimentation sentiment spread throughout Europe and the United States" ("Animal Experimentation Timeline"). In more recent times, opponents to animal experimentation have joined together to form organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, and the American Anti-Vivisection (live dissection) Society, or AAVS. These organizations and more like them, along with ordinary citizens and sometimes the government, help fight for the much deserved advancement of animal rights. No matter how much scientists and researchers claim that animal experimentation is beneficial, it actually has no scientific bearing and is extremely harmful.

The number one problem with animal experimentation is that it is unethical. Proponents to animal experimentation try to counter this claim in many ways. Charles R. Pulver, a writer for the catholic newspaper The Wanderer, argues that animal testing is in fact ethical because animals do not have rights (Pulver 27). Pulver believes that animals do not deserve rights because they do not understand the duties that come with having rights (Pulver 27). Pulver explains that animals act on instinct and not because they know the difference between right and wrong (Pulver 27). This in turn means the animals cannot be held responsible for their actions, which according to Pulver, is a duty that goes hand in hand with having individual rights (Pulver 26). Another argument made by Pulver is that humans were granted dominion by God over all animals (Pulver 28). This would mean that humans, being superior creatures, could do to animals whatever they please. A less religious stance on the subject is taken by Henry E. Heffner, a psychology professor at the University of Toledo. Heffner deems animal experimentation ethical because he believes that the testing benefits the animals as well as the humans (Heffner 73). Heffner explains that laboratory animals benefit from animal experimentation because they are being bred, which in turn allows them to survive (Heffner 73). Heffner also explains that the massive amount of breeding and the way in which it is done has caused laboratory animals to become more genetically diverse (Heffner 73). This in turn could possibly be beneficial to the animals, giving proponents a reason to support animal experimentation.

The truth, however, is that animal experimentation is unethical. Fehr-Snyder and Hart elucidate on this by revealing that often animals are bred to be killed and dissected and other times the testing done on the animals forces them to be killed (Fehr-Snyder and Hart). For example, " a researcher at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix has been injecting cancer cells into the brains of beagle puppies…the problem…is that the researcher has been unable to get the cancer cells to grow after more than 8 years of experiments, forcing hundreds of dogs to euthanized" (Fehr-Snyder and Hart). This translates into hundreds of innocent puppies being murdered for no reason at all. Such a needless waste of life should be punished or stopped.

Even when animals are not being killed they are being subjected to painful testing. Dana Bidnall, in an article from Alive: Canadian Journal of Health and Nutrition, informs readers that laboratory animals are suffering not only intense physical pain caused by the experiments but also the emotional and neurological discomfort brought on by the testing (Bidnall 50). Bidnall indicates that "a large number of animals suffer isolation, boredom, anxiety, psychological distress, separation from their mothers soon after birth, and sleeplessness" (Bidnall 50). The pain felt by laboratory animals can also be caused by the poor conditions they are forced to live in. Bidnall argues that the way animals are housed in laboratories is harmful because it does not allow them to live the way they were intended to (Bidnall 50). Bidnall upholds this claim