Why Animal Testing Needs to be Banned

1. Subject: Animal Testing

2. Definition of Key Terms: 

Animal Testing – The medical experimentation on animals

• Used for medical research
• Animals testing for drugs later to be used on humans
• Testing occurs before product is marketed

3. Contention #1: The majority of animal testing does not contribute to human health. 

Dunnuck, Heather. “Save the Animals: Stop Animal Testing.” Save the Animals: Stop Animal Testing

• Animal toxicity studies are poor predictors of toxic effects of drugs on humans

• The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has noted that 95 percent of all drugs that are shown to be safe and effective in animal tests fail in human trials because they don’t work or are dangerous. 
• More than 110 million animals are killed in the US alone every year (Peta.com)
• Around 97 percent of the animals experimented on in any animal testing end up dying directly due to the circumstances they were put under (Haaretz.com)
• Therefore, testing is not worth the pain, suffering, death and waste of material when most of the testing doesn’t benefit us.

“Animal Testing: Animals Used in Experiments.” PETA, 9 Feb. 2022, 

• Tons of animals are being killed yearly for no good reason — some people believe the testing is just on small animals like rats and mice — but that’s not the whole story
  • The PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS explain “Each year, more than 100 million animals—including mice, rats, frogs, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, fish, and birds—are killed in U.S. laboratories for biology lessons, medical training, curiosity-driven experimentation, and chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics testing.”
    • Furthermore, they provided some examples of testing, “Before their deaths, some are forced to inhale toxic fumes, others are immobilized in restraint devices for hours, some have holes drilled into their skulls, and others have their skin burned off or their spinal cords crushed. “

Tons of animals are being experimented on like they are just objects — this is against their rights

4. Contention #2: Testing  violates animals’ rights.

Dunnuck, Heather. “Save the Animals: Stop Animal Testing.” Save the Animals: Stop Animal Testing 

• According to the Lonestar Edu on the topic of animal rights
  • A Philosophy Professor at North Carolina State University, states: “Animals have a basic moral right to respectful treatment. . . .This inherent value is not respected when animals are reduced to being mere tools in a scientific experiment” 
  • Animals don’t have the decision to opt out of a test
  • We are animals too, but we have rights, and our pets don’t?
  • Their decisions are made for them because they cannot vocalize their own preferences and choices.

“Laws That Protect Animals.” Animal Legal Defense Fund, 29 Oct. 2020, 

• The Animal Welfare Act was signed in 1966, and it states, “ 1.Torture. No person shall overdrive, overload, torture, cruelly beat, neglect, or unjustifiably injure, maim, mutilate, or kill any animal, or cruelly work any animal when it is unfit for labor, whether it belongs to that person or to another person.”
  • According to this law, animal testing fits along the lines of illegal treatment.

Animals suffer throughout the process of experimentation which is morally wrong to do to a living creature.  

• Most animal research facilities do not believe in using painkillers during procedures claiming it is a waste of medication for an animal who will die anyway.  

-Animals end up living for years enduring these painful tests without any way to ease their pain and without being put out of their misery (Peta.com)

• Animals are kept alive in unbearably painful conditions where they have to endure cruelties without the opportunity of death.  This can be considered a form of torure. 

5. Questions to think about:

• Do you think animal testing is beneficial to humans? Why or why not?
• What gives animals less rights than us? The animal welfare act was signed nearly 60 years ago?
• Are you aware that about 110 million animals are killed each year just for laboratory testing?
• And you are also aware only 3% of animals survive testing – that is – out of the 110 million?

6. Common questions on animal testing:

• Could you clarify what law makes animal testing illegal? 
• The Animal Welfare Act was signed in 1966, and it states, “ 1.Torture. No person shall overdrive, overload, torture, cruelly beat, neglect, or unjustifiably injure, maim, mutilate, or kill any animal, or cruelly work any animal when it is unfit for labor, whether it belongs to that person or to another person.”
• You said earlier that animals shouldn’t be subjects of testing, so what do you propose we use instead?
• PETA explains, “These alternatives to animal testing include tests using human cells and tissues (also known as in vitro methods), advanced computer-modeling techniques (often referred to as in silico models), and non harmful studies with human volunteers.”

7. Rebuttals: Prepare to refute what you think your opponents will talk 

about. 

• Science and technology is not developed enough
  • Humans can’t be used for experiment
• Rebut: Yes, however PETA explains, “These alternatives to animal testing include tests using human cells and tissues (also known as in vitro methods), advanced computer-modeling techniques (often referred to as in silico models), and non harmful studies with human volunteers.”
• Animal testing contributes to live saving cures and treatments 
  • Develop vaccines

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has noted that 95 percent of all drugs that are shown to be safe and effective in animal tests fail in human trials because they don’t work or are dangerous.