Design Plan
For my paper I plan to focus on animal rights. . My introduction will focus on what exactly animal rights are and why they are important. My first main body paragraph will talk about animal testing and is experimenting on animals ethical, Does animal testing really save life’s or is it just used for products that are considered for just more of a personal use, things such as shampoo and perfume. Also what are some alternatives to animal rights? My second body paragraph will talk more about animal abuse and cruelty and is it a human’s obligation to protect animals. Are zoos ethical and do we have the right to take them anyway from their natural habitat to put them on display. This paragraph might also focus on animal mills and kennels and what moral and ethical challenges are involved. The other side of the argument that I will bring up is that animal experimentation can save lives. In this paragraph I will show some alternatives to animal testing and bring up the ethical challenge with animal testing. My conclusion will do a quick overview and sum up my reasons for animal rights and bring up the moral challenges that come with animal rights. These paragraphs might be switched around depending on what the strongest point is. My strategies for this paper is to make my audience feel sad for animals and make them feel like animals are equal to humans. I am trying to evoke emotion within my audience by informing them of the harsh treatments that goes on within these animal testing factories. I will arrange my essay so that my strongest point goes last and the rest of the paragraphs build up to it. I will do this so that my essay ends on a strong note because that is what the audience will remember.
I hope to create the argument that taking away animal rights is wrong and unethical. Some people might disagree on how I see this because animal testing can be used to save lives but I believe that most people will agree with me and come to terms with the issue I create about animal rights. I do not know a lot about my argument and but I do know some about the harsh conditions that surround animal rights and cruelty. As of now I think that animals deserve rights but maybe I will change my mind after doing some research and see what cures have come from animal testing. To conduct my research I am going to look at both sides of the argument first and get a perspective on both sides. I plan on using sites such as PETA, which are pro animal rights and have been fighting for years on trying to get animals more rights. But I also plan on using other websites such a protesting so that i can get both sides of the argument. I hope to learn exactly what animal rights are and about the ethical and moral challenges that are faced when it comes to animal rights. My current position is that animal’s should have more rights and that using animals for profit is wrong.
Annotated Bibliography
Garner, Robert. "The Politics of Animal Rights." British Politics. 3.1 (Apr. 2008):110-119 ProQuest. Lewis U, Lewis Lib. Web. 7 Apr. 2014.
This author explains what he believes animal rights are while also giving the input of other authors and what they believe what people mean by animal rights. The author has written multiple books relating to the field of animal rights including articles Manchester University and Cambridge. This source is about 6 years old, but references to past articles and how animal rights has changed over the years. This source relates to my topic because it gives multiple definitions of what animal rights exactly are and talks about the animal rights movement. This author talks about how animals also can feel pain and suffering and using these qualities he is able to relate them to humans. The author also explains how humans exploit animals rather than caring for them.
Cramer, Marjorie. "Lethal Laws: Animal Testing, Human Health and Environmental Policy." The Animal Agenda. 18.4 (Jul. 1998.): 38. ProQuest. Lewis U, Lewis Lib. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
This author’s main point is to talk about how animal testing is a bed and lethal things that is hurting our environment. This information is a little outdated because it is from 1998, although the information is still good and will help me in my search for other information. I can use to for y rebuttal paragraph and find evidence that contradicts this evidence. This isn’t much background provided about the author except that they have wrote multiple articles for the animal agenda.
Sun, Shany. "The Truth behind Animal Testing." Young Scientist Journal 5.12 (2012):83-85. ProQuest. Lewis U, Lewis Lib. Web. 7 Apr. 2014.
The main point of this article is to talk about how animal testing it used to test on experiments. The author also mentions that they are also used to find cures for diseases so that the audience can get both sides of the argument. This article is relevant to my thesis because animal testing has a major part to do with animal rights. This article is also not outdated because it was published only two years ago. This article can relate to my other article because the other article talks about alternatives to animal testing. This article actually make me think about animal testing, and if it can actually be a good thing. It talks about how the media’s image of these testing facilities is actually based on a bias opinion and animals are not treated nearly as bad as the media believes.
Best, Steven. "Chewing on the Rights vs. Welfare Debate." The Animals Agenda 22.2 (Apr.-May 2002):14-16. ProQuest. Lewis U, Lewis Lib. Web. 7 Apr. 2014.
I chose this article because it explains the difference between animal rights and animal welfare. This article and the last article have made me change my option on animal rights and instead of being for animal rights, I am for animal welfare. “Welfarists believe animals should not be caused "unnecessary" pain, and hold that any suffering caused them be done humanely." This article is a little outdated because it is from 10 years ago, but the information is really just fact based and about things that really haven’t changed over time.
Engeman, Richard M., Shumake, Stephen A. Animal Welfare and the Statistical Consultant. American Statistical Association, 2008. 229-233. Print.
The author’s main theme of this chapter is that animal testing has laws in place that makes sure minimal stress is done to animals and that the animals are used sufficiently and treated humanely. Stephen Shumake is a past chair member of the animal use and care committee at the Denver wildlife research center. The intended audience for this is for pro animal rights people who are not fully informed on animal testing. I will use this information to show the animal testing isn’t as bad as people think it is and doesn’t treat animals inhumanely.
Kuwahara, Steven S. "An Overview of the Animal Welfare Act." Journal of GXP Compliance 15.2 (2011): 48-52. ProQuest. Lewis U, Lewis Lib. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
This article explains the animal welfare act passed by congress that makes it so that animals that are being used for commercial reasons are treated adequately. The author uses laws that have been passed by congress to support their research. This article relates to my other articles because it says how animals are actually already treated fairly and that since animal welfare is in place that there is no need for animal rights.
Smith, Richard. "Animal Research: The Need for a Middle Ground." British medical journal 322.7281 (2001): 248-249. ProQuest. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
This article talks about how less and less animals are being used for testing over the years. Researchers are making sure they only test animals when it is needed and that they use the animals sufficiently. The author actually went to college to get a degree experimental pathology because it fascinated him so much. I can relate this to my paper because cures have come from animal testing and without animal testing it would take longer to find the cures for disease. Animal testing helps saves life’s without torturing animals.
Grazian, David. "Where the Wild Things Aren’t: Exhibiting Nature in American Zoos." The Sociological Quarterly. Midwest Sociological Society, 2009. 546-65. Print.
This article talks about animals in zoos and how hard it is to create a natural habitat for the animals, but also how there are laws in place to make sure the animals are being treated properly and not abused. This author goes to zoos to see do his research. I can use this article to talk about how zoos aren’t really against animal rights and are actually treating the animals fair. But this is no case because there are many laws in place to make sure animal testing facilities are treating animals humanely. Animal welfare is important because animal testing still cares and focus on that animals are being treated humanely, animal testing has helped the medical field with finding cures, and the alternatives to animal testing are not as desirable and good as regular animal testing.
The Research Paper
The Importance of Animal Welfare
Most people do not realize the difference between animal rights and animal welfare and believe that they are for animal rights when they are in fact for animal welfare. Animal welfare focuses more on the treatment of animals rather than making them equal to humans. According to Sun Shany from the Young Scientist Journal, “Animal testing is one topic that many people do not understand. It is thought that the animals are being harmed and therefore animal testing is bad. But what these people do not appreciate is that animal testing has significantly benefited medical research; animals are not treated cruelly in the majority of cases and the alternatives are not as desirable” (84). Animal welfare should be taken more seriously than animal rights, because animal testing still cares and focus on that animals are being treated humanely, animal testing has helped the medical field with finding cures, and the alternatives to animal testing are not as desirable and good as regular animal testing.
Many people in society seem to confuse animal rights with animal welfare. Compared to animal rights, animal welfare focuses more on ethics and the proper treatment of animals. Animal rights wants to abolish the use of animals by humans completely, even things such as end raising animals for food, the use of animals in experiments. Steven Best from The Animal’s Agenda, talks about how important animal welfare is in these testing facilities and that the animals are experiences the littlest pain possibly and being treat fairly, in his article “Chewing on the rights vs. welfare debate”. Best also goes on to explain how the goal of animal welfare is give animals the best life possible while also using them in the best interest of humans. Best suggest, “Welfarists believe animals should not be caused "unnecessary" pain, and hold that any suffering caused them be done humanely” (12). In other words, Best is trying to explain than there is no need for people to worry about the treatment of animals and start an animal rights movement because the animals in these testing facilities are already being treated the best they could under their circumstances. He is asserting that animal testing is okay as long as the animals are being treat humanely and are not experiencing any unnecessary pain. Best also gives a very good definition of animal welfare stating that, “Animal welfarists acknowledge that animals have interests, but they believe these can be traded away if there is some overridingly compelling human interest at stake”(12). Welfarist aren’t completely against animal rights and agree that animals deserve to be treated fairly and humanely, but they do understand that if the stake of human interest in involved that animals can be traded away if it will improve the quality of life for humans. In the same article, Best goes on to talk about how the media’s coverage actually confuses people on the differences between animal rights and animal welfare. He goes on to talk about how many people believe that they are for animal rights but are actually confusing animal rights with animal welfare and are not properly informed about the treatment of animals. Best points out that “Many activists adopt a schizophrenic mindset that is rights-talk in theory but welfarist in practice” (14). People seem to either confuse animal rights and animal welfare or say they are for animal rights and are practicing animal welfare without realizing it. People need to start seeing the difference between animal rights and animal welfare, and realize that animal facilities treat animals with respect and as humanely as possible. Society needs to realize that animal rights is actually a bad thing and that animal welfare has the best interest of humans in mind.
The first reason why animal right’s laws against animal testing should not be passed is because animal welfare already has laws in place that make sure that animals are treated humanely. Many laws regarding animal welfare and the treatment of animals in these testing facilities have been passed in favor of the animals. These testing facilities are not treating animals as poorly as the media is reporting. Shany Sun in her article, The truth behind animal testing, reminds people that these testing facilities actually have laws in place that regulate the way that the animals can be treated and are actually subject to random checkups to make sure they are complying to all these laws. Shany goes to far as to say, “animal rights activists protest against the inhumane treatment of animals, but animals in research facilities are actually treated quite well, in accordance with the strict regulations which govern animal care”(85). The National Institute of Health and the U.S Department of Agriculture are just two organizations who have passed strict laws governing the treatment of animals in testing facilities. They regularly visit testing sites to ensure that these laws and animal care regulations are being followed properly. According to their statistics, only about six percent of animals being tested in these facilities experience any sort of pain. Even then they make sure that the pain level is at a bare minimum(Sun 84).Animal testing is a necessity and its okay as long as the animals are being treated properly and that they are only experiencing pain that is absolutely necessary and at a bare minimum.
Animal Welfare is already practiced across the United States and animal rights laws, from groups such as PETA, are not needed because animal welfare laws are already making sure that humans are not abusing the rights of animals. The Animal welfare act of 1966 is the most important law towards animal care and regulates the treatment of animals in research facilities and animal exhibits. In her article, Shany Sun explains how the animal welfare act of 1966 is in place so that animal rights is not needed. This act aims to guarantee that animal testing is only used as a last resort and after all other methods have been used and deemed unusable and unsuitable. Throughout this act, committees such as the Use Committee and Animal Care have formed. These committees are responsible for creating laws such as providing animals with proper and good living conditions while undergoing experimentation and to also provide medical care when need. The Media and animal rights activist make it seem that the animals that live in these facilities are being badly and being abuse and neglected on a daily basis, when in reality most animals are being treated with respect and cases of mistreatment or abuse are actually rare (Sun 83). Steven Kuwahara who principal consultant at GXP Biotechnology and has been a supervisor is multiple research facilities, also explains how amendments made to the animal welfare act even further the rights of animals, in his article, An Overview of the Animal Welfare Act. The 1985 amendments added to the act state that the use of animals ins necessary in certain research to knowledge of cures and treatments for diseases which affect both human and animal life, while also meeting the measures made by public concerns to ensure that the animals are being treated humanely. These amendments also make sure that animal experiments are used only when necessary and eliminates the unnecessary duplication of experiments on animals so that funding can be used to help develop methods of testing that do not use animals and are faster, less expensive, and more accurate than the tradition animal testing. Kuwahara goes on to state that, “These statements clearly address public concerns about the manner in which pharmaceutical studies are conducted. The statements are encouraging in that they show that Congress does understand the role that animal experimentation plays in pharmaceutical research and wishes to have it continue with due regard for public concerns”(50). There is no need for animal rights because animal welfare already makes sure that public concern is a major part in making laws that make sure that animals are being treated fairly and that research and experimentation on animals is only used as a last resort with as little pain as possible received by the animal.
Animal welfare is not only better than animal rights because the animals are already being treated humanely, but also animal testing helps the medical field develop cures for diseases. Animal testing is need because it is the quickest way to gain medical knowledge about cures and diseases. In addition to cures for humans being developed, animal testing also helps us find cures for diseases that affect animals. Shany Sun points out, “Animal research makes it possible for new drugs and vaccines to be developed, benefiting both animals and humans” (85). Since animal testing is already treating these animals humanely, there is no point in banning testing if it is also helping scientist gain medical knowledge to cure diseases that plague animals. In addition, medical advancements such as penicillin, blood transfusions, insulin, kidney transplants, vaccines for polio and meningitis, and countless other cures have been discovered using animal testing. According to Sun,” most every cure or vaccine that is known today is associated with animal testing. Cures for animals have been discovered, too. For example, vaccines for rabies, anthrax, feline leukemia, and canine parvovirus have been found. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, animal testing has helped increase human life by 23.5 years”(83). Unlike animal rights, animal welfare believes that animal testing should be allowed because the animals are being treated fairly and medical research is being gained for testing. Since animal testing is only trying to better the lives of humans and animals, there is no need to put a ban on it. As stated above animal testing has helped increase the average human life by over twenty years and is still working to find more cures to even further human life.
The main goal of animal welfare is to better the life is of animals used during testing by using the three R’s: replacement, reduction, and refinement. Richard Smith from the British Medical Journal, stated in his article, Animal Research: The Need for a Middle Ground, “The beauty of the three Rs is that they provide a way for all parties to work together to advance the cause of both animals and humans. Nothing will be gained by forcing laboratories to close or by oversimplifying the debate” (248). The main goal of the three Rs is to keep allowing animal testing to occur so that cures and medical research can be improved, while making sure that the animals involved are not being treated horribly. The main goal of replacement is that when possible to use alternatives that do not involve any living animal to complete the experiment. However, the problem with this is that there are only a handful of genuine replacements for animal testing that have proven to work and show favorable results. Reduction refers to lowering the number of animals used in a single experiment to obtain information about a certain cure. Therefore, once you have completed an experiment and have accurate results, there is no need to use animals again to repeat the experiment. Lastly, according to Richard Smith, “Refinement is any development that leads to a decrease in the incidence or severity of inhumane procedures applied to those animals which have to be used” (249). Refinements wants to make sure that will experimenting on animals that the least harmful method of testing in used while trying to find cures. Overall, the main goal of animal welfare is to treat animals as humanely as possible, while still using them in research and testing to help speed developments in preventing and treating diseases.
In addition to finding cures and help preventing disease, animal welfare must also be put in place over animal rights because the alternatives to animal testing are not as helpful or desirable. Although many alternatives to animal testing have been developed and seem reasonable in theory, the fact still is that they are not as desirable and usefully as animal testing. In addition, these alternatives can set back and delay scientist in their experiments and limit the amount of knowledge that can been discovered in the medical field. Stephen Shumake and Richard Engeman, past chair members of the animal use and care committee at the Denver wildlife research center, points out in their book, Animal Welfare and the Statistical Consultant, that one alternative to animal testing that animal rights activist suggest is computer models and simulations. The problem with these thought is that computer simulations are very complicated and is limited to the amount of biological systems are currently understood in the experiment. Computer models would set back the medical field because it would take years for everyone to be able to completely understand how computer simulations involving the biological system in animal experimentation (229-233). The problem with computer model is that it is based on assumptions and do not show how a full human body would react to the drug .While many people bash animal welfare because it involves animal testing while there are alternatives to it, they do not simply understand that the alternatives are less desirable. Sun Shany also talks about how the alternatives to animal testing are not as useful as regular testing. In her article, Shany talks about tissue culture as a possible alternative to animal testing. Tissue culture is the process where scientist take live tissue from a human and animal and test or drug on the tissue. The problem with this alternative is that the results only show the reactions to the drug on a group of tissues rather than a full body reaction (Shany 86). According to Shany, “scientists say we simply do not yet understand the complexities of the human body well enough to be able to design suitable non-animal alternatives”(87). So while in theory these alternatives to animal testing seem like a compelling reason to ban animal testing, in reality our medical field and scientist do not yet fully understand and have the knowledge about these alternatives for them to be affective.
While animal welfare is by far the better choice than animal rights, many people out there believe that no matter how well animals are being treated that they are not seen as property. In his article, Chewing on the rights vs. welfare debate, Steven Best states that, “animal rights activist believe that the animal welfarist see animals as property rather than a living thing with feelings. Thus, for example, no matter how comfortable we could make the lives of animals in laboratories, it remains as difficult as it is important to vindicate the claim that scientists and universities do not in reality "own" the animals they purchase from the laboratory animal breeding industry”(14). Animal rights activist believe that since animals are living things with feelings, that they cannot be seen as property. Therefore is it inhumane to be testing these animals even if they are given proper living conditions. The problem with this is that our society needs animal testing so that scientist are able to prevent and cure the spread of diseases. David Grazian from Sociological Quarterly explains in his book, Where the Wild Things Aren’t: Exhibiting Nature in American Zoos, that animals can be seen as property by humans because they have basic needs that can only be fulfilled by humans. He talks about while it is hard to create a natural habitat for the animals, there are laws in place to make sure the animals are being treated properly and not abused (546). As long as animals are being treated fairly and not suffering unnecessary pain that it is okay to own animals and consider them as property.
Overall animal rights and welfare are a bit confusing to understand and differentiate between the too. The media and society seems to confuse the two together and make people feel like they are for animal rights, when in reality they are for animal welfare. Society seems not completely understand the concept of animal testing and believes that animals are experience unnecessary pain and are being tortured. However, this is not case because there are many laws in place to make sure animal testing facilities are treating animals humanely. Animal welfare is important because animal testing still cares and focus on that animals are being treated humanely, animal testing has helped the medical field with finding cures, and the alternatives to animal testing are not as desirable and good as regular animal testing.
Works Cited
Best, Steven. "Chewing on the Rights vs. Welfare Debate." Animal Rights Network 22.2 (Apr.-May 2002):14-16. ProQuest. Lewis U, Lewis Lib. Web. 7 Apr. 2014.
Engeman, Richard M., Shumake, Stephen A. Animal Welfare and the Statistical Consultant. American Statistical Association, 2008. 229-233. Print.
Grazian, David. "Where the Wild Things Aren’t: Exhibiting Nature in American Zoos." The Sociological Quarterly. Midwest Sociological Society, 2009. 546-65. Print
Kuwahara, Steven S. "An Overview of the Animal Welfare Act." Journal of GXP Compliance 15.2 (2011): 48-52. ProQuest. Lewis U, Lewis Lib. Web.
Smith, Richard. "Animal Research: The Need for a Middle Ground." British medical journal 322.7281 (2001): 248-249. ProQuest. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
My Experience
Overall, while I found
this project to be the most interesting of them all, it also happened to be the
most stressful. There was a lot of work that went into this project and it took
a lot of time and patience. I found that writing synthesis made this project so
much easier to reach the eight-page minimum while also still writing paragraphs
with good information. Before this project, I was all about animal rights and ending
animal testing, in fact that was what I was going to do this project on. However,
after doing research I found out that animal welfare is a much better solution
because animal testing has its benefits, while it also makes sure animals are
not experiencing any unnecessary pain. The process for this project began with writing
an annotated bibliography. At first I thought this bibliography was a waste of
time and just something to keep s busy, but when I actually started writing my
paper I found myself looking back to this bibliography multiple times to get
information on where to look to get my research. I found myself procrastinating
on this paper and stressing out about it. If it were not for all the work and time
we spent in class on this project, I probably would have cracked under the
stress and been unable to complete this paper.
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