Animals Rights

It would be appreciated if voters would read the arguments rather than vote according to the framework. SubstanceRegarding animal testing. .. Animal experimenters want us to believe that if they gave up their archaic habit, sick children and other disease and accident victims would drop dead in droves. But the most significant trend in modern research in recent years has been the recognition that animals rarely serve as good models for the human body. Studies published in prestigious medical journals have shown time and again that animal experimenters are often wasting lives—both animal and human—and precious resources by trying to infect animals with diseases that they would never normally contract. Fortunately, a wealth of cutting-edge, non-animal research methodologies promises a brighter future for both animal and human health. The following are some statements supporting animal experimentation followed by the arguments against them. “Every major medical advance is attributable to experiments on animals. ”This is simply not true. An article published in the esteemed Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine has even evaluated this very claim and concluded that it was not supported by any evidence. Most animal experiments are not relevant to human health, they do not contribute meaningfully to medical advances and many are undertaken simply out of curiosity and do not even pretend to hold promise for curing illnesses. The only reason people are under the misconception that animal experiments help humans is because the media, experimenters, universities and lobbying groups exaggerate the potential of animal experiments to lead to new cures and the role they have played in past medical advances. “If we didn’t use animals, we’d have to test new drugs on people. ” The fact is that we already do test new drugs on people. No matter how many animal tests are undertaken, someone will always be the first human to be tested on. Because animal tests are so unreliable, they make those human trials all the more risky. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has noted that 92 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. And of the small percentage that are approved for human use, half are relabeled because of side effects that were not identified in animal tests. “We have to observe the complex interactions of cells, tissues, and organs in living animals. ”Taking a healthy being from a completely different species, artificially inducing a condition that he or she would never normally contract, keeping him or her in an unnatural and distressful environment, and trying to apply the results to naturally occurring diseases in human beings is dubious at best. ,Physiological reactions to drugs vary enormously from species to species. Penicillin kills guinea pigs but is inactive in rabbits; aspirin kills cats and causes birth defects in rats, mice, guinea pigs, dogs, and monkeys; and morphine, a depressant in humans, stimulates goats, cats, and horses. Further, animals in laboratories typically display behavior indicating extreme psychological distress, and experimenters acknowledge that the use of these stressed-out animals jeopardizes the validity of the data produced. “Animals help in the fight against cancer. ”Since President Richard Nixon signed the Conquest of Cancer Act in 1971, the “war on cancer” in the United States has become a series of losing battles. Through taxes, donations, and private funding, Americans have spent almost $200 billion on cancer research since 1971. However, more than 500,000 Americans die of cancer every year, a 73 percent increase in the death rate since the “war” began. Richard Klausner, former head of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), has observed, “The history of cancer research has been a history of curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades and it simply didn’t work in humans. ” Studies have found that chemicals that cause cancer in rats only caused cancer in mice 46 percent of the time. If extrapolating from rats to mice is so problematic, how can we extrapolate results from mice, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, cats, dogs, monkeys, and other animals to humans? The NCI now uses human cancer cells, taken by biopsy during surgery, to perform first-stage testing for new anti-cancer drugs, sparing the 1 million mice the agency previously used annually and giving us all a much better shot at combating cancer. Furthermore, according to the World Health Organization, cancer is largely preventable, yet most cancer-focused health organizations spend a pittance on prevention programs, such as public education. Epidemiological and clinical studies have determined that most cancers are caused by smoking and eating high-fat foods, foods high in animal protein, and foods containing artificial colors and other harmful additives. We can beat cancer by attending to this human-derived, human-relevant data and implementing creative methods to encourage healthier lifestyle choices. Animals are not part of the moral communityMy opponent arguments regarding animals being part of a moral community raises a number of worrying questions. My opponent claims: "To have any form of moral status, one requires rationality to process what that 'moral status' even is. " Babies have little understanding of rationality and moral status. People with specific mental disadvantages do not have a complete understanding of moral status. Does this mean that they do not deserve rights either? By your logic anyone or thing that cannot process what a moral status is does not deserve to have rights. Your argument may seem to make a valid point at first but if you put this in terms of human relations then you have made a huge mistake. You continue to talk about the understanding of basic laws such as murder. As well as falling under my previous point this also can be used to question human rights. Again, by your logic humans shouldn't have rights. Animals kill other animals for food and so do humans. People intentionally kill insects (especially spiders) on a regular basis. Just because they are inferior in terms of size, this does not mean that they are inferior species. If a man killed a dog people woudl hate him. If a man squished a spider nobody would notice. Does this make human action any more or less moral than the actions of an animal. At least animals do it out of instinct, they need to kill to survive in the majority of cases. Humans do not need to kill for food. As well as killing for food, humans also kill for sport and kill for fun. I'm sure that my opponent can admit that no human is completely the same and yet two competely different people can both be moral. Morality is individual and is shaped by that individual however there is a universal morality that is shared by the majority of human beings. This universal morality is not specific to animals and since we cannot inform them of it, they cannot be expected to know it and follow it. Animals kill, people kill. Animals kill for food. People kill for food, war, fun, sport and for money. Surely, you cannot say that animals are less moral than people. When was the last time an animal dropped a bomb? The answer is never. When was the last time an animal shot a gun? The answer is never. So before you speak about how immoral animals are. You should analyse the immorality of human beings in modern society. My opponent attempts to show that people with severe disabilities and babies do count however the quote by Frey that my opponent has provided creates inconsistencies in their argument. As well as this being an extremely weak argument that doesn't have much relevance to the debate it is also a whole argument / rebuttal copy and pasted by my opponent. I have chosen to not elaborate on this further since this argument has not been worded properly; it has been copy and pasted and it makes very little sense to me. Until my opponent decides to rephrase this quote in their own words then I cannot properly refute it. Sources. http://www.aboutanimaltesting.co.uk...http://www.biology-online.org...http://www.iep.utm.edu... I apologize for not numbering my sources. As I mentioned at the top of this debate, I do not have a lot of time so I was in a rush when I was typing this. My opponent should leave the next round blank. I have intentionally left out rebuttals to round 2 since my opponent will not get a chance to refute my round 3 arguments without having an extra round.