Free Essay Example. Why Animal Testing Should Be Banned

The Earth consists of living things that live together in different environments. Living things include humans, animals, and plants. Both of them have basic necessities of life such as healthy food and water, shelter, and freedom. When all these necessities are achieved, the living organisms will coexist in the habitat helping each other in one way or the other. For example, dogs provide joy and companionship, security, and many other benefits. Another example is rodents such as rats and mice. Unfortunately, people typically consider rodents as just pets and see no bright benefits rodents might contribute to the ecosystem. Personally, I also had the same assumption about the evil of rodents. But now, my belief has changed dramatically having learned about the importance of every living organism in the ecosystem. For example, mice play a crucial role in every habitat they inhabit. Mice and rats are food to numerous predators. They also encourage plant growth by helping in seed dispersal. In turn, humans depend on plants for food. This brief statement shows that human life is sustained through coexistence with other animals in the natural habitat. As humans, we have the most significant brain capacity to think and reason appropriately than other animals. Therefore, it is our responsibility to take care of other living things in the ecosystem to ensure life continuity. I believe that it is our responsibility as humans to take care of other living things by preserving the necessary conditions for their life including their social freedom, food and water, and natural shelter. It is not just, fair, or morally upright for humans to turn wild to animals and use them in gross experiments for scientific laboratory testing. In this paper, I will describe three reasons why animal testing should be banned.

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Having considered the importance of every living organism in the ecosystem and the responsibility we have as humans in preserving nature, the following three reasons justify why animal testing should be banned. First of all, animal testing deprives animals of their rights to basic necessities such as social freedom and natural shelter (Von Aulock 142). Studies show that more than 100 million mice suffer cruelty and death in laboratory experiments. Yet, some experiments also make use of dogs, frogs, and primates such as chimpanzees. During scientific experiments, these animals remain confined in laboratories for an extended period of time. By using animals for testing in laboratories, humans deprive them of the freedom to interact freely in their natural habitat causing loneliness. Animals also have feelings just like us. They value social interactions and being together as a species (Von Aulock 144). When they are isolated from their members, they become lonely and hopeless in an environment they least expected to exist. It is agreeable that no matter what conditions scientists and researchers may try to provide them, the laboratory is not a natural environment for animals (Lee 194). The laboratory separates animals from their members and forces them to get along with human researchers who are full of personal interest to achieve scientific invention and innovation. In the process, the researchers have their freedom but deprive that of animals. It is also regrettable to note that these animals suffer for what does not benefit them at all (Lee 194). They are there by force because they have no otherwise. Animals cannot speak to express their feelings, and they have feelings of course.

Second, animal testing is not ethical. Just as humans, animals also have families that they love to be around with. The scientific testing in laboratories deprives them of the quality time they need to spend with their families. Some animals may be tending their young ones at the time of capture. Of course, these animals have to look for food to feed their young ones. When researchers capture these animals, they never care whether they have young ones to tend to or not. The animal gets confined in the laboratory while its young ones starve to death. Animals also have feelings and emotions (Von Aulock 143). They might cry and shed tears in the laboratory but in vain because no researcher takes care of their own interest but not that of the captured animal. I'm just imagining being in that animal's shoes, captured and confined in a laboratory while my child is crying back at home for food. It is very drastic.

Finally, there are other, more effective non-animal testing methods available. Today, there exist better non-animal research methods that have proved a great success in developing drugs for curing diseases. They include in vitro technology, computer modeling, human-based micro-dosing, and human-patient simulators (Lee 194). These methods are faster, safe, and more cost-effective as compared with animal testing methods. It will be reasonable for researchers to stop using animal testing methods for their experiments and start using the technology available to effectively develop better results. Nevertheless, about 95% of all drugs that have successfully passed the animal test fail to work in humans (Von Aulock 143). I'm just imagining the cost of developing these drugs, the suffering, pain, and agony the animals have been forced to experience in the entire process only to fail in humans.

To conclude, I sternly believe that it is our responsibility as humans to take care of all animals in the ecosystem by preserving their right to live and interact freely in their natural habitat. Therefore, it is not just and morally upright for scientific researchers to confine animals in laboratories to fulfill their interest in which the captured animal does not benefit at all. Caging animals in the laboratory for testing cause them great fear, pain, loneliness, and death while producing results that work perfectly on animals but fail in humans.

References

Lee, Courtney G. "The Animal Welfare Act at Fifty: Problems and Possibilities in Animal Testing Regulation." Neb. L. Rev. 95 (2016): 194. Retrieved from https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/nebklr95&div=9&id=&page=

Von Aulock, Sonja. "Is there an end in sight for animal testing?." ALTEX-Alternatives to animal experimentation 36.1 (2019): 142-144.