Some people think that using animal for experimentation purpose is necessary for the development of science. Do you agree or disagree?

In recent years, there is growing concern with regard to using animal in laboratory. While it is argued by many people that using animal for experimentation is critical for the advancement of science, others think that it is cruel and thus unacceptable. Overall, it is my personal view that, either human or animals are living creatures and are able to feel sense of pain, hence animals shouldn’t used for human’s sake.

First of all, pain is an intrinsic evil, and any action that causes pain to another creature is simply not morally permissible. Animals do in fact suffer, and do in fact feel pain. The researcher who forces rats to choose between electric shocks and starvation to see if they develop ulcers does so because he or she knows that rats have nervous systems much like humans and the feel the pain of shocks in a similar way. Pain is an intrinsic evil whether it is experienced by a child, an adult, or an animal. Human and animals are both living creatures on Earth, and animals should shared equal right to live as human. Hence, if it is wrong inflict pain on a human being, it is just wrong to inflict pain on an animal.

Secondly, animal welfare activists defend their position by countering the claim that halting painful animal experiments would put an end to scientific progress, with harmful consequences to society. Much animal experimentation, they say, is performed out of mere curiosity and has merit or no scientific merit. Animals are starved, shocked, burned, and poisoned as scientists look for something that just might yield some human benefit. In one case, baby mice had their legs chopped off so that experimenters could observe whether they’d learn to groom themselves with their stumps. In another, polar bears were submerged in a tank of crude oil and salt water to see if they would live. And, for those experiments which do have merit, there exist many non-animal alternatives. It is only out of sheer habit or ease that scientists continue to inflict pain on animals when, in fact, alternatives exist. And, where alternatives don’t exist, the moral task of science is to discover them.

By ways of conclusion, although animal testing is critical to the development of science, scientists should seek alternatives as opposed to animal experimentation to reduce pain on animals.