Animal Testing: A Moral Dilemma

For countless decades humans have taken it upon themselves to take defenseless innocent wild animals to test and experiment on them. Ranging from powerful drugs and lotions to chemicals, vaccines, and packing materials. The practice of using animals for testing has been a controversial subject for the past thirty years. The question is whether animal testing is morally right or wrong. An integral part of the debate, over animal testing and experiments, mainly centers on the question of an animals moral status. Most people would agree that animals have some moral status. Which is why we find it wrong to abuse pets or needlessly hurt other animals. Animal testing has been regularly referred to as “Animal Cruelty” and this certainly poses a problem

Doctors and scientists have recognized that while animals are somewhat biologically similar to humans, they are not exactly identical. (Animal Testing- A Necessary Evil? 2014) The EOInternational stated:
“Animal testing has its flaws and its benefits and results in helping humans while harming animals. Animal advocates claim that this act is extremely inhumane and unjust to animals; yet, are we doing the right thing? Are humans so much more important than animals? Is an animal’s life worth less than a human’s? These are all questions we will have to ask ourselves when we take our next vaccine or medicinal

As a result, we can assume that their sensitivity to pain is equal to our own. Some may say that the purpose of animal testing is not to harm the animals, but that is precisely what it does! Australian moral philosopher Peter Singer stated,
“To be opposed to what is going on now it is not necessary to insist that all animal experiments stop immediately. All we need to say is that experiments serving no direct and urgent purpose should stop immediately, and in the remaining fields of research, we should, whenever possible, seek to replace experiments that involve animals with alternative methods that do not.”
In a nutshell, it can be said that animal testing an extremely cruel was of testing drugs to improve the quality of human lives As a result, animal testing carries a lot of damaging impacts with it. We need to see an end to the suffering of innocent animals in the name of science! A more humane approach is most definitely