Animals Rights Essay, Research Paper

In America today, one of the most debated issues is on animal rights. Many people storm the streets and form picket lines in order to support the strong ideas and feelings that this issue brings forward. The reasons that these people fight so hard for animal equality is because billions of animals world wide are killed in medical experiments, used for product testing, trapped for their furs, and even used for the benefit of war research (Williams 7).

This topic has brought about many heated debates all over the world. Sometimes it can be hard to choose a side with this topic. For example, some argue that without animals the medical field might not be what it is today. While others argue that the suffering of animals should not be known as the way we keep healthy in such an advanced and developed nation. Even if you believe in the experiments, imagine being locked up in a cage and being tortured to death for someone who really doesn t even care.

Although scientists try to fight animal rights activists by upholding the fact that people gain cures, new vaccines, and medical breakthroughs from animal experimentation, the debate over the harshness of these experiments still remains. Monkeys are immersed in water and vibrated to cause brain damage. They are separated from their mothers, kept in isolation, addicted to drugs, and induced to commit aggressive acts. They are also dipped in boiling water, while other animals are shot in the face with high-powered rifles (Williams 10). Even if these procedures are for medical development, it is at the animal s expense and dismisses animal welfare all together.

The more commonly known injustice is when animals are used for mere product testers. This product testing is unnecessary, cruel, and inaccurate. The results are inaccurate because center conditions, such as stress from the laboratory environment, are not even noted. Therefore, this can effect the result of a certain product on human beings. In addition to the inaccurate results, the animals are treated cruelly so that we may one day be able to wear a cosmetic product or use a furniture polish. Rabbits used because their eyes do not produce tears and, therefore, cannot cleanse themselves are placed into stocks, and their eyes are filled with a foreign substance (Williams 15). After this horrible procedure, the foreign substances cause ulcerations in the rabbit s eyes. A final result is reported but usually not even by a trained official. After what all the animals go through, it is upsetting to know that these methods are not necessary or even required under any law. New laboratory techniques such as computer simulations and cell-culture systems are available. These new methods are, also, more accurate than the older, harsher ones.

One of the more commonly forgotten areas of animal abuse is trapping. It is also the hardest for animal welfare groups to bring down. Radicals against this idea have formed different rebellions in different countries, but the United States is the only country that has truly fought back against the activists. One of the main reasons that the fur industry is able to uphold its fight is because they are supported by some rights-absolutists within feminism who see wearing a fur coat as a woman s right (Williams 16). Not only do the industries have trouble but also the trappers. Protesters have finally been able to pass legislation against the use of the steel-jaw leg-hold traps. These traps tear animal s flesh and break bones, and many animals die of shock or starvation before the trapper returns (16). Some of the smaller animals are put through so much pain just for the little amount of fur that they do have.

Many people do not know about animal abuse by the government, but it is one of the worst forms. Beginning in 1957, monkeys were placed at varying distances from ground zero during atomic testing; those that didn t die immediately were encaged so that the progress of their various cancers might be noted (Williams 14). This type and many other forms of radiational tests are formed on monkeys to this very day. Not only monkeys are affected by governmental testing, but also dolphins have also been used for the government s advantage. They have been used for injecting carbon dioxide cartridges into Vietnamese divers and planting and removing mines. Animals should not be used in such a cruel way by the government so that they can benefit in such a thing as war.

Animal rights activists would like to change many of these ways, and they would with good reason. People today can do without things that hurt animals. Women can do without wanting a new type of mascara, and people can stop wearing furs. Although this might seem minimal, a little progress at a time for animal rights can help many animals in the long run. Animals should not have to suffer for some of the frivolous benefits that we get from their experiments.

Works Cited

Williams, Jeanne. Animal Rights and Welfare. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1991.