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Is animal testing justified

is animal testing justified

  • yes

    Votes: 8 42.1%
  • no

    Votes: 11 57.9%

  • Total voters
    19

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
I voted yes with the caveat that animal testing should be limited to medicines, not makeup or other products, and there should be a strictly enforced and unified ethics oversight to determine suffering is kept to a minimum. It will never be a perfect system, but animal medical testing betters human AND non-human animal quality of life, and has lead to live saving discovery to an extent that cannot be ignored. But that animal testing without ethical oversight creates horrors that should also not be ignored.
 

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
Please vote on the poll. What gives us the right to subject animals to such abuse??

The ability to do so.

I voted "yes" in the poll because it's obvious that there are reasons which justify it. Humans can rationalize anything. Personally, I find that if humans are unwilling to experiment on their own animal for purposes that only benefit their own animal, they should not be doing the experiments at all.
 

whereismynotecard

Treasure Hunter
I prefer volunteers to be tested, or for treatments to be tested out on those who are at the end of their options - like a treatment for a dog sickness that we're not sure will work - test it on a dog with that sickness and who has tried everything else and will die otherwise. If the products are for humans, it makes more sense that they would be tested on humans. If you pay volunteers, I'm sure you'd get tons of people willing to test stuff.

I realize it's a complicated issue - how do we test if a flea medicine is safe? How about dog shampoo? The best test subjects to provide accurate results would of course be dogs. I just really don't like the idea of an unwilling subject. Animals cannot consent to this. So I would prefer paid human volunteers to test things whenever possible - most especially anything that is going to benefit only humans.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
We're top of the food chain
I think we've pretty much removed ourselves from the 'chain'.
The ability to do so.

I voted "yes" in the poll because it's obvious that there are reasons which justify it. Humans can rationalize anything. Personally, I find that if humans are unwilling to experiment on their own animal for purposes that only benefit their own animal, they should not be doing the experiments at all.
Why not experiment on prisoners, or the elderly, who are no longer contributing to the economy. They'd be better biological models, surely.

If might makes right, then there's not really a controversy here. Anything we're capable of is justified, and if we're not capable of it it's a non-issue.
Add utility as a factor and Dr Mengele is revealed as a visionary.
 

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
Often times medical studies are conducted on animals first, this allows the potential of side affects up to and including death to be observed before human trials start. So we are willing to test on ourselves, it's literally the second stage of developing new medications. So it's tricky to say whether this is justified. But I know that animal testing has and continues to provide us with invaluable information about the effects of medicine or treatments. I would prefer other methods and hopefully technology will enable us to limit animal testing to next to zero or even better non existent.

Testing for make up products, tests to see what tobacco does and other tests that already have observed results is another thing altogether. That's just completely unethical.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
So far we've had might makes right and utility makes right.
I remain doubtful. Neither can be applied generally without some pretty gruesome possibilities.
 

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
So far we've had might makes right and utility makes right.
I remain doubtful. Neither can be applied generally without some pretty gruesome possibilities.
I just think we should do it on humans simply because I'm a misanthrope and human pain and suffering in general doesn't bother me as much.
 

Katzpur

Not your average Mormon
Since I had to vote "yes" or "no," I picked "no." While there may occasionally be a legitimate exception to the rule, I'd say that at least 99% of the time, it is not justified.
 
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