Katheryn Steffins
Angela Shepherd
English IV
3 April 2018
Animal Experiments: Ethical Issue or Scientific Progress? Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The greatness of one’s nation and of its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” He could not be more right. Animal treatment has been a controversial topic for a number of years- and it continues to build momentum. Animal rights activists have protested many acts of injustice from poaching to ill-treatment in zoos to animal lab testing. The latter is of utmost importance in the furthering of drugs and cosmetics. But is it fair for its force participants? Although animal experimentation has a good purpose, the use of live specimen is not ethically sound and should be replaced with more humane methods. Animal testing has been around for thousands of years. Both Aristotle and Erasistratus, two famous and influential philosophers, performed experiments on animals in their research. Years later, Galen, a physician, did the same to better understand the anatomy and physiology of the body. Further down the road, another doctor, Zuhr, operated on animal clientele to test surgical procedures. Around the 17th century, ethics changed and laws were
…show more content…
When using animals as test subjects a major issue is predicting the effects of a drug in human based on another species (Coleman 2). For instance, a bear has a similar thoracic area but other than that is majoring different (Henson 215). In addition, replicating human traits in animals without regard to different biochemical build causes problems and negative effects in humans. These tests were well-known as unreliable- yet they are still performed. Sheep and mice have been proven as bad subjects for remedies regarding asthma but researchers still test on them. In regards to a cost of alternative endeavors, many groups are willing and wanting to assist in future effective practices (Coleman