Animal Welfare Research Paper

With the rise of the Internet over the last decade, the issue of animal welfare and rights has no doubt become a large issue for discussion. This essay aims to examine the question ‘Human welfare should take priority over animal welfare. Do you agree?’ and support with my personal stand. I do not agree that human welfare should take priority over animal welfare.

The American Veterinary Medical Association has distinguished between ‘welfare’ and ‘rights’. ‘Welfare’ is defined as ‘a human responsibility that encompasses all aspects of animal well-being, including proper housing, management, disease prevention and treatment, responsible care, humane handling, and, when necessary, humane euthansia’ while ‘rights’ have been defined as ‘a philosophical

Animals may assist in the advancement in medicine by acting as test subjects, but this does not mean that we are given the right to neglect their basic needs. In laboratories, animals live stressful and unnatural lives, being locked in crowded cages and deprived of basic resources in order to ‘save resources’. While this may be cost-efficient to prevent using more resources, it also causes harm to animals when basic needs like space, food, and water are not given where needed. Animals are also put through painful procedures, of which most are rather questionable – including permanent infestation of worms in dogs for future studies. One example of this is the commonly used Lethal Dose 50 Percent test – a test that requires animals to be injected with high amounts of toxin to determine what dose will kill 50 percent of test animals. During the manufacturing of Dysport, an anti-wrinkle treatment, test mice injected with the toxin in Dysport experienced muscle paralysis and nausea, leading to severe distress and suffocation over a few days. This may all result in a medical breakthrough or successful medicine that is beneficial to society, but neglect of basic animal welfare for the potential medical breakthrough is unacceptable. Stressed animals can also cause inaccurate results, which then requires more animals to be used since so many trials did not work.

Taking the example of Hurricane Katrina that struck New Orleans in 2005, a total of approximately 600,000 dogs were left stranded after the hurricane struck. While there were smaller response animal rescue groups such as the Lollypop Farm and Last Chance for Animals that set out to save these stranded animals, government resources were directed towards relief efforts for people in rescue centers, such as those in the Super Bowl. It is in government interest to direct their resources to saving human lives, as humans are those to contribute to the economy and keep society running the way it does. To direct their primary resources to animals would result in the death of many people. This goes to show that in a case of disaster where resources are limited, human welfare should be prioritized. As such, I believe that while human welfare should take priority in such an extreme case where a large number of human lives are at stake, the welfare of animals cannot be entirely neglected and should be looked after when the needs of humans are not as great and can sustain on their own without relying on external