Animal Experimentation
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Animal experimentation
Have you ever asked yourself whether you regarded animals as your friends or materials? This question can be related to a very controversial issue the animal experimentation. People debate whether animal experimentation can be used to achieve medical research or not. Since thousands of lab animals die every year, at this point I would say people’s opinions can determine animals’ lives. Also, according to a Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago Divinity School Seth Perry, since experimentation is just a way to test the hypothesis, equivalent exchange won’t happen between improvements in the medical area and lose of lab animals’ lives. (Perry, 2007) Although, scientists sometimes may achieve some medical researches with the help of animal experimentations, the fact is the number of animal life loses is much higher than the medical advancement gains.
Supporter of animal experimentation state that using lab animals to do some medical research can be regarded as a reduction of human suffering. I would say that sometimes animal experimentation may help people to reduce the suffering; however, it’s totally an unmoral way. First, animals are another group to live on the earth, so they are also the owners of the earth. How can people just use them as sample to do research? Also, due to the different genes, one species reacts to a given drug or chemical in a particular way does not necessarily entail other species will react in the same way. The fact is thousands of animals lose their lives every years for being the experimental samples. Therefore, it’s a waste of animals’ lives to use lab animals to do some medical research, and people shouldn’t be so cruel to reduce suffering by using lab animals instead.
The second argument of those supporters are that since people provide food for animals and they cannot say no to refuse to be the lab samples, so animals can be used by human as a sample to finish some medical research. However, this argument is incorrect. We can use a simple example to prove this argument is incorrect. Parents also give their children food. Can they deal with their children whatever they want? It’s unconstitutional and absolutely not. Despite the fact that human beings provide food to animals, animals still have rights to have a peaceful life, even though people provide them food. Food is not equal to life. Also, it’s not fair for animals to be the lab samples, since they cannot talk and refuse. Many babies and dumb people also cannot talk. If we use those supporters’ ways to choose lab samples, babies and dumb people can also be the targets. Consequently, those supporter’s opinions are absurd and ludicrous. And we cannot use animals to do whatever we want.
Those supporters’ final argument is animal experimentation is less costly than human being. After hearing that, I want to ask those people who support animal experimentations a question. Is there any price for life? Are you going to sell your life if some buyers give you a very high price? I think the answers are mostly not. Since there is no price for lives, how can those supporters say animal experimentation is less costly than human being? Also, as a huge and important group of member lives on the earth, animal should have the same right as human beings, and life is very precious for every living thing. Not only people should treasure their lives, animals’ lives should also be protected. Therefore, supporters’ this argument wasn’t convincing, and the choosing of experimentation sample cannot be determined by price.
Now, since I oppose all the opinions from those supporters, they may ask me to find out the solution of animal experimentation.
I would say that animal experimentation is not the only way to achieve the medical research, and my first solution is to enact a law to protect lab animals’ lives, and the law can let volunteers help the scientists to test the reaction of new drugs. Therefore, with the help of that law, people are not allowed to meddle with animals, since animals have rights to live their life peacefully.
The second solution is that as the improvement of biotechnology, scientist will be able to use only one cell the test the reaction of a drug. According to the information about biotechnology on Wikipedia: “since the 1970s, it began to be used by the Western scientific establishment to refer to laboratory-based techniques being developed in biological research, such as recombinant DNA or tissue culture-based processes.” (Wikipedia, 2007). We have the reasons to believe scientists are able to combine different cells together to create new organs. The purpose of experimentation for medical research is to test the reaction of organs to the new drug. Therefore, we can just use organs which are put in the culture dish to test the reaction of organs to the new drug without losing lab animals’ lives.
Also, people should consider the morality of Animal experimentation. The best the way to stop animal experimentation is to make people feel it’s unmoral to use thousands of lab animals’ lives to exchange a few medical improvements. Therefore, people should be taught heart to heart that animals’ lives are their own, they also have rights to have a peace life and people are not allowed to meddle with animals. If animal experimentation supporters’ opinions are changed and they think it’s unmoral to use animals as experimentation samples, animals will live in a peaceful environment without being samples to test some hypotheses.
In brief, it’s unmoral to use animals to finish some medical research. Because animals and human are living in the same world, animals have rights to enjoy themselves without being used as experimental samples. Moreover, it’s not fair for the animals to use their lives to exchange medical improvement for human beings. Therefore, in my opinion, people should realize animal experimentation is totally a huge mistake and should be prohibited forever in order to protect animals’ lives and let them have a peaceful life.
