My Favorite topic of this week was the ethical rights on using animals
for research. The reason why I chose this is that I am a very earth loving and
compassionate person, which is why I am a vegetarian mostly because I see
animals as equals, not as a species below us. According to the text there are
three kind of groups the ones ok with animal testing, abolitionist which will
go through what ever means necessary to stop animal testing, by harassing
researchers and or their families and vandalizing research facilities, and then
you have the minimalist which are ok with animal testing but push to use less
animals than what are actually used. I would like to say that I stand as a
minimalist, because as much as I hate animals being tested on for something
that benefits us and not them, I do realize that they play a very important
role on our medical field. Testing on animals has its advantages and
disadvantages to my point. For example, as similar as a part of an animal or
the whole anatomy of the animal can be to ours, it is still not a human; hence
there is a chance that we could react differently to the treatment. While on
the other hand animals have a much shorter life span than we do, so when
testing treatments or whatever it is on them, we can see things happening at a
much faster rate, which has helped medical field progress so quickly. If I
could I would say to invest on other forms of testing things, rather than using
animals, by using human cell cultures, or computer simulations, like it was
mentioned on the video. Here is an interesting video on animal testing.
I agree with you about being a minimalist. If there were a way to give incentive to companies to develop other research methods that would be good. Perhaps some grants or awards to motivate them to come up with new methods. Your video was interesting as well. It was a little difficult for me to decide whether it was to promote or reject animal testing because it mentions the lady dying from using that mascara but then talks about the legislature developed to protect animals as well as the animal protests. However I concluded that it was more to inform about the topic in general. On a side-note, I wouldn't imagine cosmetic testing on animal subjects would be neccessary, but after learning that a lady died from it not being tested, it also seems to serve its purpose, making it difficult to figure out what is acceptable and what is not.
ReplyDeleteI stand with you, Derek. I'm a minimalist as well. I don't believe that animals have the same rights as humans, otherwise they would be law-abiding citizens who pay taxes, but that's just silly. We are far more complex organisms than they are, so our rights do not apply to them. What we do share in common is the ability to feel joy and pain, and it's for this reason that I would not agree with subjecting animals to painful experiments. It is true that some experiments may help in the advance of medicine, but surely there must be a way to minimize the amount of pain and number of animals that are subjected to such harsh treatment. I like what Monica said as well about motivating researchers to develop new methods for conducting research on animals. That would definitely be a dollar well spent on the government's behalf.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I think I would be considered a minimalist as well. I like the points you brought up about us not being exactly like animals so we might react differently to certain things which could be true. Also about animals having a shorter life-span than we do, which has helped in finding results faster which is a good thing. It would also be good if researchers found different methods for conducting research but I am afraid that some research just wont give the necessary results that animal testing does.
ReplyDeleteWhile I enjoyed your article, I didn’t really agree with the beginning of the video. In my opinion saving one life, is opening to saving other lives. Those first vaccines were the gateway to the vaccines and advances in those vaccines we have now. So while breakthroughs have been “sparse” I consider the data that does come out of animal testing to still be valuable. None the less the rest of the video was interesting and I agree with the idea that animals should not have to suffer for cosmetic or household product testing.
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