Animal experimentation has been a commonly debated subject for many years, is it cruelty or science? About 1.4 million animals die each year from animal testing. This is because of harsh ways animals are treated like by their experimenters. Animals should be free of the cruelty scientists expose them to because they have just as much sentient as humans do.

I think animal testing is cruelty more than science. Animals are not treated well and are often abused by their handlers. Small animals share a shoe box sized cage with at least eight other small animals. That’s no way to live. Imagine stuffing eight human beings into a regular sized bedroom. Where are you all going to sleep or get dressed? Not easy right? Animals will be held down by metal bands or locked in small cages with a hole cut out for the animals head to be trapped into, so they can not move around and be a hassle while being tested on. An ats lab in North Carolina stuffs monkeys in tubes.

Another harsh thing handlers do is take out dog’s vocal chords so they don’t disturb the lab workers. As for death to an animal; the experimenters will euthanize the animal after being tested on or will use the animal again for further testing until they are dead or useless. If you don’t believe the cruel ways animals are treated, go on youtube and search for: PLRS: undercover at a product- testing lab.


Animals are not just objects. They have feelings and can think, just like us humans do. Rene Descartes, a French philosopher and scientist, said people have the right to use animals just as if they were machines. The more similar the animal is to a human the more intelligent and sentient the animal is, so the more immoral and wrong it is to use the animal as a biological object. Descartes also believed only humans have feelings and could think. If this were true animals wouldn’t flinch and whimper when needles are injected in them or when testers put drops of cologne in the animals’ eye.


Scientists use animals for testing products to make humans lives better right? That’s what I thought too. Well, many experiments that were approved to be available to human beings have later been recalled for safety issues or harmful side affects. Is animal testing very reliable? If products have to be withdrawn from stores and human use, then that in it self should say something. Can we trust that animals will have the same reactions to a product as a human would? Not at all, if we get shampoo in our eyes we immediately know to rinse it out and we’re fine. Animals don’t know that and are not used to such products. Therefore animals will have different reactions to things we can easily fix. A mouse and a human being are not the same and will react differently to different things. We don’t expect a human to live in a cage its whole life. We don’t expect a mouse to brush its teeth and know not to swallow the toothpaste. Many everyday products like toothpaste and soap do not have to be tested for. Companies that make those products and cosmetics however do use animals for testing and it’s completely unnecessary.


There are other ways to test without animals. One process is called the Neutral Red Uptake Assay in which jelly like substances called cultures are put into a glass case then human cells are placed in the culture. Chemicals that are being tested are added to the dish. The human cells will either live or die. The cells react by changing a different color. Researches analyze the color with a computer. The computer can calculate how likely a chemical is to kill human cells. There are also artificial organs, eyes, and skin that react just like the real thing would. Plants and bacteria can be used as well. Doctors can also analyze humans without hurting them by examining what they do on a daily bases. In 1951 Britain doctors showed a link between smoking and lung cancer by examining people who smoke compared to people who don’t. No animals or humans are harmed or killed during any of these tests.


Many people argue that testing on animals is the most efficient way to know that our products are safe. They argue that animals produce much faster then humans do so why not take a few of the animals? Those animals are less important and valuable then human beings anyways right? Wrong. Author Peter Singer says “Humans are animals too, and we must respect other species.” And I agree fully. Other arguments are that using animals is the cheapest way; the other experiments are not as accurate as animals and that using animals have been beneficial to human life. Now I’m not going to say that it hasn’t been helpful but there could have been other alternatives.

After what I have read, yes I am very against animal testing. Yes, animal testing is cruelty and in a lot of cases not necessary. I do use stuff that probably has been tested on animals but did it really have to be? Like perfume, in a test, called the Draize Eye test, scientists spray perfume into a rabbit’s eye. Rabbit’s eyes do not easily wash away irritating substances unlike humans eyes do. Animals are not use to the everyday stuff human’s use, so of course animals will react much differently than humans will. Animals are not meant to use perfume, soap or any other everyday object human’s use, so why test on them? This to me and many others is very cruel and wrong. Save America’s animals before it’s too late.