Nowadays animal experiments are widely used to develop new medicines and to test the safety of other products. Some people argue that these experiments should be banned because it is morally wrong to cause animals to suffer, while others are in favour of them because of their benefits to humanity.
Discuss both views and give your own opinion.
Answer:
Although it is sometimes thought that animal experiments ought to be banned as it is ethically wrong to cause animals to suffer, other people hold the perspective that these experiments can afford humans several benefits. In my opinion, I consider that it is immoral to use animals for any tests or trials. In the forthcoming paragraphs, I shall discuss both sides and give reasons to support my point of view
On the one hand, using animal experiments means human deaths can be reduced. This is because animals will be tested initially, so humans may be less likely to be exposed to high-risk medicines. For example, people are able to use vaccines for the Black Death disease because it is previously tested on rats and monkeys. Moreover, they do not need to compensate a lot of money for families whose relatives unluckily perish due to the failed experiments. As a result, the cost paid for medicine experiments will decrease remarkably because fewer people are used for such tests. It can therefore be argued that animal experiments are conducive to humans in terms of safety and cost reduction.
On the other hand, it is perhaps even more important to pay attention to the morally wrong sides when animals are caused to suffer. In detail, the right of animals are not rigorously protected as the same as human beings, so they are easily exploited for several purposes, especially in the medical field. Not only that, people conducting experiments may not even care about the number of animals which pass away during the course of testing. One study, for example, shows that the number of animal deaths due to the Covid-19 vaccine experiments exponentially increased, moving from 10,000 in 2019 to 90,000 in 2020. This proof makes me believe that animal experiments are highly immoral since researchers do not have any alternative ways during this period. Thus, instead of uplifting various benefits of animal experiments, people need to recognize the inequality or anguish that animals might encounter.
To sum up, I can understand why many people believe that animal experiments are helpful for humans in the area of developing new medicines and testing the safety of different products, yet it seems to me that the rights of animals should be a priority and people should not be entitled to make use of them for any purposes