Pros:
- medical research that can save peoples lives or help them lead better lives - The supporters of animal testing argue that if animal testing is eliminated, that many of the medications and procedures that we currently use today wouldn't exist and the development of future treatments would be extremely limited.
- Animal testing not only benefits humans but also helps other animals, for example the heartworm medication that was devised from research on animals has assisted many dogs.
- other testing techniques are not advanced enough
- minimise injury and maximise benefits
- the advantages outweight the costs.
- Moreover, many argue that the lives of animals may be worthy of some respect, but the value we give on their lives does not count as much as the value we give to human life.
- As far as animal testing is concerned we are confronted with the moral dilemma of a choice between the welfare of humans or the welfare of animals.
- The Research Defense Society – RDS, a British organization instituted to defend animal testing, maintain that most of the complaints made against animal testing are not found to be correct and that animal testing generates valuable information about how new drugs react inside a living body.
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Arguments against testing
- morality -
The supporters of animal rights say that animals have the right to live their own life peacefully; and we are not allowed to meddle with them just because we can.
- necessity/validity -
Deaths through research are considered unnecessary and are morally not different from murder. Animal dissection is regarded as misleading.
- usefullness -
Arguments against animal testing may generate at least two different arguments. Some believe that the goals of this type of testing are not significant. The blinding of rabbits to have a new kind of mascara is yet to be justified.
Others argue that the reaction of an animal to a drug is quite different than that of a human being. Animals are involved in testing the products such as cleaning products that assist humans less than medicines or surgery.
The fact that the results attained from experiments on animal testing do not accurately portray their influence on humans is considered to be a one of the serious argument against the animal testing. Humans are quite different from other animals, so the consequences of animal testing may not applicable to humans. They argue that they way 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.
Critics continue to argue that animal kept in unnatural conditions, or animals in pain or distress, are not giving rise to accurate or consistent results anyway. Stringent regulations have not eliminated researchers from abusing animals even though such instances are rare.
