People for Ethical Treatment of Animals

*Off the record: Hi Sam! Fun debate! =) You accepted my debate while I was on vacation, so I've been typing up counterarguments whenever I have access to a computer! You've concocted some tough arguments! My vacation is not supposed to be stressful, lol. X)* For clarification purposes, I would like to say that my animal testing argument is one I'm using in a simultaneous debate. http://www.debate.org... "Animals cannot be held on the same moral platform as humans. Rights are a human invention used to moderate human social interaction. Animals are amoral creatures; they do not have free will. To have a right, you must have free will. Humans are sapient; we have rationality. This is what distinguishes us from animals." My opponent has misconstrued what I said. Because humans only have knowledge of what they are capable of, it is impossible for animals to be considered equal by humans. I said that animals should have A CERTAIN DEGREE of rights. Rights meaning treatment that is just, morally good, legal, proper, or fitting. (See dictionary.com) "I have already stated that while I agree with animal rights groups that such treatments of animals is unnecessary suffering, we can still have these practices but with guidelines, with restrictions." My opponent fails to specify what "restrictions" or "guidelines" he would instate. Animals should not be destroyed or bred for this purpose without sufficient justification in terms of public benefit. Nor should animals be removed from their habitat without sufficient justification in terms of public benefit. The Clioquinol and Thalidomide catastrophes are not just two isolated cases. The following is information found from a reputable source. ________________________ Nobody benefits from animal testing when they take medicines. Drugs originate not from such tests but from clinical observation, serendipity and rational drug design. Animal testing became mandatory following the thalidomide tragedy, but it has failed to prevent further disasters. Vioxx, which was used to treat arthritis and acute pain, is the biggest drug catastrophe in history. According to David Graham, associate director of the US Food and Drug Administration's Office of Drug Safety, an estimated 88,000 to 139,000 Americans alone had heart attacks or strokes as a result of taking Vioxx, as many as 55,000 of them fatal. Smaller drug disasters are commonplace, killing many thousands every year. New human-based tests could prevent many of these deaths. Microdose studies of volunteers reveal drug metabolism in the human body with accuracy. Yet regulators require animal studies, not microdose studies. We would all be safer without animal tests, which correctly predict drug side effects only between 5 and 25 per cent of the time, according to studies published in the scientific literature. Action must be taken now to prevent another Vioxx. -------- http://www.newscientist.com...... __________________________ Many more lives would have been saved if humans were initially tested on, instead of animals, before the product was released. We should not assume that medical products that have one effect on animals will have the same effect on humans or vice versa. That is why animals testing is not only futile but detrimental to humans. Anyway, we are getting sidetracked. My main point is that an organization, giving a voice to animals that cannot represent themselves among man, and contesting the terrible treatment animals cannot withstand, champions a good cause. "PETA does a lot of good. In any large organizations, there will always be the few bad apples, like the ones who dumped the bodies of the dogs or cats. But PETA does make a huge difference in exposing unethical care of laboratory animals. While ALF often makes poor decisions, they have also exposed some very poorly managed animal care facilities." http://omg.yahoo.com... The fact of the matter remains that PETA only allegedly associated with the ALF and that issue is still debatable.