Animal Testing

This round I shall be working on my opening arguments only. Contention 1: UtilitarianismFor this case of Utilitarianism I will be focusing on John Stuart Mill's case of Utility here. We have to look at the Greatest Happiness for the Greatest Number of Sentient Beings. I will concede to the fact that animals are Sentient beings, but something we should focus on is the Greatest number portion. Before we dive into that I would like to point out a key argument that Mill makes and that is humans have priority over animals concidereing that humans can expierence a greater amount of pleasure and a better potential in this case. [1]Now as we begin here I have to prove that through Animal Testing we would be providing the Greatest Utility in this case and henceforth win the debate on these grounds, because if the ultamate utility isn't achieved then we will have more pain than pleasure and thus harming humanity which will ultamately lead to our downfall and depletion of human progress. First let's look at the benefits that these animal tests have provided humans. If we can look at the past 100 years we can see that almost all of the medical break throughs have actually came directly from Animal tests. [2] There have been tests of which the dog's pancrease was removed and insulin was discovered this way. Now we save tons of diabetic patient lives each year. We have also used animals to test for polio and this has effectively helped bring down those numbers from 350,000 in 1988 to a mere 233 in 2012. [3] There's also progress and come close to vaccines and treatments on a long chain of other illnesses it has helped with that I don't have time to go into detail with them all, but to list a few: Hep B, Hep C, polio, Brain Injuries, Breast Cancer, TB, Leukemia, Cardic Valve Subsitutes, and several others. [4][5]Let's move on to animals and how they actually benefit from this. Now I would like to clarify to the voters here. I'm not the anti-PETA guy who thinks that we should put lipstick on a bunny to see if it makes it bullet proof, but more of a reasonable expierements over these vacines and such. First we have to look at some of the cures that actually came from testing on animals and the animal diseases that had vacines for them. There has been a countless list, but just to name a few: Rabbies, CPV, Feline Hep, Distemper, Antrax, and Feline Leukemia. [2] We can see that in this case countless millions upon millions of animals lives would have been lost if it wasn't for animal testing. As for the number of research subjects it is just over 26 million total. We consume more than 1800 more animals than test subjects. [6] We cannot deem this unethical without attacking eating meat amongst other things. Now we can see that overal more humans and animals have been saved than those animals who have lost their lives and in current use. This is important when weighing this argument as we can see that this plan creates a net benefit of pleasure while my opponent's plan would be that of a net pain and shouldn't be ennacted as her position not only harms society and ends the golden age of medical research, but it kills humans of which we could have saved through animal research. Contention 2: Ethic of Care This will be another key argument as in this contention will I not only show that animals get better treatment than the PETA narrative paints, but will show that animal testing is necessary for the Ethic of Care. The Ethic of Care argument is dependent of that of one's relationships and whether they entered upon it voluntarially. We can see that there may be a relationship between a human and an animal, BUT we must apply an offshoot of ecofeminism. Here we can see that humanity must preserve our society and better it for our future generations. Our future generations are that of the next immidate generation here. [7] Most of these relationships are actually maternal and for that we have to think of the future generations of which not only would we be saving more animals in the future, but more animals. It is for this great fact that we still need animal testing in order to protect the unborn and save them from these diseases. Some PETA activists may claim the same naritive that Brian Griffin did in Family Guy of which they put lipstick on a bunny to see if it's bullet proof. (video provided for humor) That's an absurd and an incorrect narrative as we can see that this industry is heavily regulated by the US Federal Government. According to the Animal Welfare Act Passed in the mid 1960's animals had to be provided with adiquete housing, food, water, way to use the bathroom, receive regular check-ups from vets, and all research testing has to be approved by a Congressional Committe in order for it to go forward. [8] Believe it or not, but they get play breaks, their choice of toys, and relaxation for several hours a day, so countrary to belief they aren't just used all day and night with end, but are in a good condition and relitively happy about their status. [9]When we look at this situation we can see that animals are the perfect fit here as humans are out of the question. We have to see that many mammals are key in this research as they have similiar builds to humans like how certain monkey's share 99% of Human DNA and their similiarities can help cure key diseases and solve key medical issues. [10] These testings must continue or we might suffer another Thalidomide Tragedy where a sleeping and pain killer pill lead to people having to amputate limbs. [11] This issue shows us that we need to push for more animal testing not less. This is needed to prevent more tragedies like this one from happening. We can see that this is another very important argument here as we can see that if we do not continue this animal testing we will be violating our relationship with our future generations and harming them by killing them before they are even born. We must preserving our future generations and our relations for the safety and stability of our soceity and the human race. With that I will pass things off to my opponent. Sources1. (. http://faculty.frostburg.edu...)2. California Biomedical Research Association, "CBRA Fact Sheet: Why Are Animals Necessary in Biomedical Research? ," ca-biomed. org (accessed Oct. 15, 2013) 3. National Academy of Sciences, "Report Calls for New Directions, Innovative Approaches in Testing Chemicals for Toxicity to Humans," nationalacademies. org, June 12, 20074. AnimalResearch. info, "Diseases & Research," animalresearch. info (accessed Oct. 15, 2013)5. Elizabeth Fisher, "Why We Should Accept Animal Testing," huffingtonpost. co. uk, July 17, 2013 6. Tom Holder, "Animal Research Is an Ethical and Vital Tool to Fight Disease," blogs. law. harvard. edu, Jan. 14, 2013 7. MacGregor, Sherilyn (2006). Beyond mothering earth: ecological citizenship and the politics of care. Vancouver: UBC Press. p. 286 8. (. http://animal-testing.procon.org...) 9. Americans for Medical Progress, "Touring an Animal Research Facility," youtube. com, Oct. 21, 2008 10. David Wright, Cole Kazdin, and Lauren Effron, "'Zoobiquity': 7 Diseases Animals Share with Humans," abcnews. go. com, June 12, 2012 11. (. https://helix.northwestern.edu...)