Term Paper on "Animal Cruelty"

Term Paper 4 pages (1475 words) Sources: 5 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

cruelty, and thereafter apply the meaning to animals, and the ways in which cruelty is meted out to them by scientists and researchers. The history of using animals for experimentation will be analyzed, and then, the British Cruelty to Animals Act in 1876 will be explained. A conclusion will be made, about why it is unethical to use animals for experimentation, and why the trend must be halted.

Animals have been used for the purpose of experimentation for several years, and today although several animal rights activists and others have been actively campaigning for this cruel and completely unethical practice to stop, there have been no signs of this practice ever coming to a real stop, wherein animals would be able to lead free and unfettered lives. It is a sad fact indeed that many, in fact most of the average human population of the world apparently believes that it is completely OK to use animals for experimentation, and also to inflict diseases in these poor hapless creatures, so that human beings would be able to find a cure for that disease. Take for example, an imaginary scenario in which a woman loved her dog deeply, but the same women would not hesitate to sacrifice her beloved dog if she were promised that this sacrifice would fetch a cure for her child's disease. Human beings have always chosen a fellow human being over an animal, and this trend is reflected today, in the fact that although animal rights activists do put forth philosophical arguments in favor of animals, people still will not put an end to these creatures being used in experimentation. (Greek, Greek, 11) Thesis Statement: Use of animals for experimentation is cruelty to animals and is unethical.

Discussion:

The term 'cruelty' in itself is defined by the Webster's Dictionary as "causing, or of a kind to cause pain, distress, etc. cruel implies indifference to the suffering of others." (Paul; Elder, 211) What this means is that cruelty can encompass the means by which an innocent is forced to experience pain, for some purpose of the inflictor's own, which he could stop if he wished to, but does not. This would bring us to the actual point: in what way is cruelty to animals justifiable in the name of science? Why must an animal be made to suffer untold pain and misery, just so that scientists could analyze and experiment with drugs or scientific methods meant for human beings? As a matter of fact, even common household items, cosmetics, and shampoos, soaps, furniture polish and oven cleaners are tested on animals before they are approved and marketed for humans. For example, a few drops of liquid or granules are dropped into a rabbit's eyes, to test whether it causes irritation, and if does, then the human being would benefit, because the shampoo would be withdrawn, improved, and tested again, and yet again, while the poor creature would suffer untold misery on account of the testing procedures. At times, animals are immobilized in stocks, wherein their heads alone may protrude, and experiments are then conducted, with no anesthesia to dull the pain. (Paul; Elder, 211)

However, those individuals who are committed to the cause of using animals in experimentation always have a ready argument to justify its use. For one, they say, two kinds of experimentation on animals are carried on in the world today, and they are, one, a compilation of the available government data from different countries, and second, the database of all published articles on the issue. These are the two sources that are used today, and furthermore, studies are based on two methods, which are invasive and non-invasive procedures. While invasive refers to experiments conducted on an animal when it is in a conscious state, with a lot of pain inflicted on it, the non-invasive method involves painless research on animals. Pain can often be a part of the procedures being conducted, and without the pain, the experiment would have no value, stress the researchers. In a particular study of primates in Asia, it was found that more than half of the experiments were of the non-invasive type, in which the primates were active participants in the experiments. (Houde, 256) However, there is an intrinsic difference between a human being and an animal; while a human being would be able to give his consent to any experimentation procedure, an animal would… READ MORE

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