Experiments Carried Out on Animals

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Experiments Carried Out on Animals

This theme song to a popular cartoon is a farce dealing with experiments carried out on animals. In the cartoon one mouse is made very smart and wants to take over the world while the other is clearly not as smart. While the cartoon makes jokes, the reality is that mice and other animals re being used for medical tests every day. For some people this testing brings up ethical questions. One of the biggest questions: is it really necessary to take the lives of animals in the name of science and for the betterment of humanity? For animal rights activists, like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the answer is no. PETA pressures labs into halting experiments because they believe that animals are not to be used by humans for "food, clothing, entertainment, or to experiment on" (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals 1). Its stance is that any testing is painful, inhumane, and unnecessary when alternatives are available. The PETA website says that "animals, like humans, have interests that cannot be sacrificed or traded away simply because it might benefit others." (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals 2-3). Essentially, PETA is of the opinion that animals and humans should have identical rights. In their press releases PETA puts out pictures of rabbits with open flesh wounds and dogs with rashes on their skins--all in an attempt to disgust people into sympathy for their cause. In actuality the number of lab animals used has been cut in half in the last 25 years (James-Enger 254). Of the animals used, 90 percent are rats and mice (James-Enger 1). Moreover, 11 million animals die each year in animal shelters (Americans for Medical Progress 2) and an astounding 95 percent ...

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...s Human and Animal Lives." Americans for Medical Progress. (20 March 1999). "Animal Research Holds the Key to Saving Human Lives." Americans for Medical Progress. (20 March 1999). Ball, Matt and Anne Green, and Jack Norris. "Veganism as the Path to Animal Liberation." The Animal's Agenda Sep/Oct 1998: 44-45. Botting, Jack H. and Adrian R. Morrison. "Animal Research is Vital to Medicine." Scientific American. 187 February 1997: 83-85. D. E. "Skin Stand-Ins." Scientific American. September 1990: 168. James-Enger, Kelly. "Beyond Animal Testing." Vegetarian Times. October 1998: 254. "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals." (20 March 1999). "21 Things You May Not Know About the Animal Rights Movement." Americans for Medical Progress. (20 March 1999). U.S. Department of Agriculture: Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Animal Welfare Report Fiscal Year 1997.

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