Animal Rights Essay, Research Paper

Ever since the beginning of human life we have been exposed to our dependency of what is available around us. We have so conveniently made use of our environment of plants and animals. In our society today, humans have relied too much on animals that humans can find no other substitution. It is a true fact that where there are humans there is destruction. But we have learned and have been conditioned with the fact that other animals are not as mortally or intelligently as important as we are. We have received many advantages by using animals to improve our lives, but the advantages are balanced with the disadvantages and that is when we start to think about the point of all this cruelty. We have been blinded by the fact that there are other alternatives besides ending the lives of other animals. It is our responsibility to end our cruel ways because it is us who developed it.

Since the existence of man and other animals man has been taking advantages and depended on animals for their meat, milk and eggs, which, almost everywhere, form a major part of human food. Moreover, animals have skills that we lack. Without the existence of other animals I don t think it would be possible for us humans to get to where we are today. It is ironic for humans to think that we our better then other animals when we need, learn and depend on them so much. Testing on animals have brought to us a great amount of ease to our lives so we could say that humans have the right to test on animals. We could argue that knowledge must be pursued at all costs and that we would not want to let thousands of human beings die or suffer if we could prevent it by experimenting on animals. Certain diseases, which were fatal in the past, such as polio, tuberculosis and small pox, have now been brought under control through animal experimentation. The Cruelty to Animals Acts laid down that vivisection was to be carried out only by licensed individuals in registered buildings open to checks by government inspectors. Anesthetics were to be used unless they would spoil the purpose of the experimentation, in which case a special certificate was required. At the end of the experiment, the animals were to be automatically killed, but in others they could be kept alive, often in considerable pain until the purpose of the experiment had been achieved. Testing on animals is less expensive then using alternative methods and others would explain that scientists do not have time to read all the reports published about work in their various fields and so might not know that alternative methods are already in use. What more efficient way is there to prove that the products we use and food we eat are actually safe besides testing it on other animals? What about our health issues? We must find cures for all our diseases and illnesses.

We have gotten to a stage in life where there is no turning back to the harm we have done. There is no way for us to produce all our fossil fuels or planting back trees by the billions or bringing all the dead animals back to life. Look at all the damage we have done. How can we now rush out to the mall and buy that new soap that had killed a numerous animals on its way to the stores counter top? I think we have already killed all the animals needed to prove a product safe. I think the problem isn t regarding to how safe a product is to us, or how a new drug can improve our life. We must tackle the problems from the root like where are we getting these health problems. For example cigarettes smoking should be illegal so smokers wouldn t die of lung cancer, then we wouldn t need to test on animals if Nicorette is safe for the smoker s use or if there is a cure for lung cancer. This is an example that could apply for must of our useless deeds. Because I don t think it is fair to spend money, time and animals lives to save the life of many idiots who knows that smoking will eventually kill them. What we as humans do is see a problem and build a solution on that problem rather then eliminating that problem from its roots. What are we really testing on animals for? Is it really for our health problems? Then how can scientists take the lives of so many animals just to perfect cloning? Because of our complex life systems, it is inevitable that all these viruses and diseases are killing us. And it is not fair to waste the life of an innocent animal to find a cure for our disastrous lives. We must find a way to eliminate our degrading thoughts of other animals and there place in our society.

Ever since the past century there have been stories in newspaper and on television about people who have been convicted in the courts for cruelty to animals. Zoos have been closed for mistreating animals, councils banning circuses and demonstrators protesting against animal testing. Animal activists liberating animals from laboratories and growing numbers of wildlife conservation programs. Today there are many people who think seriously about the place of animals in the world. Plutarch, the Greek writer born in AD 46, was one of the first. At a time when animals were being slaughtered in their thousands in the Roman amphitheatres, he wrote that kindness and benevolence should be extended to the creatures of every species . Unfortunately, his views were not shared widely. Aristotle a very influential Greek philosopher, living around 300 BC, had said that animals existed for the sake of humans, and the Christian teaching of the Bible, though it helped to save human victims from the anphitheatres, stated that God had given man dominion over every living thing . While in other biblical passages there were indications that dominion should be understood as a management role, most people chose to interpret it as a position of mastery. (AD 1596-1650) French philosopher Rene Descartes inspired by the new science of mechanics had declared that all animals were machines. He said that while human beings possessed a soul, the power to reason and consciousness of self and feelings, which made them more than mere machines, animals did not and worked automatically, like clocks, incapable of feeling anything at all. This is when Descartes theories excused experimenters from worrying about the cries of the living animals they dissected. This is when French writer Voltaire who had background of scientific knowledge brought to human knowledge that obviously other animals have feelings for they also have nerves. Jeremy Bentham who believed in the Utilitarian principle asked why the law should refuse its protection to any sensitive being and in 1822, after a long struggle, the principle of legal rights for animals was accepted in the Act of Parliament which made it an offence to beat, abuse, or ill-treat cruelly an animal. In the philosophical debate about the position of animals in the world, the most important development in the years that followed came about in the result of the ideas of Charles Darwin. Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work, worthy (of having been created by) a deity. More humble and, I believe true to consider him created from animals

After seeing the pros and cons on animal testing and opinions and solutions from some philosophers, in the end it is all up to each individual to see which side they take and why. In my opinion I think that if animal testing is so necessary in our lives then I think that we should all go to a research lab twice a year and sit and watch the procedure of the pain that a poor white lab mice may have to go through. Or maybe we should pay a visit to a factory farm and see how the animals daily lives are and how they are slaughtered. I sometimes wonder why I have never seen anything like this. If it is too gruesome for our eyes to see then maybe we should think twice about doing it right? After all, the problem is humans. There can be no double standard. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts find delight in killing any living creature (Carson, n.p.) Humans have come a long way to realization of the cruelty of how we treat other animals. I still think we have a very long way to go. So long that I am positive to say that I will not see that day because we haven t even come close to resolving human problems we have with each other.

Works Cited

Allison, P.J. Animal Rights. UK: British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data, 1986.

Bernard, Neal. Animal Research is Wasteful and Misleading. Scientific American Feb. 1997: 80-82.

Coats, David. Old MacDonald s Factory Farm. New York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1991.

Huxley, Thomas. Charles Darwin Autobiographies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Kullberg, John. The Animal Rights Handbook. New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 1993.

Shiva, Vandana. Biopiracy, The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge. Toronto: Between the Lines Publishing Company, 1997.

Singer, Peter. Living and Dying Psychology Today Jan/Feb. 1999: 57-59.

Watts, Franklin. Equal Rights for Animals. New York: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data, 1992