Animal Experimentation

Good Afternoon ladies and gentlemen my name is (_________) and me and my group are here to tell you not only that animal experimentation is bad, but why so.

First of all Animals have the right to be treated as beings of value in themselves, not as the means to human ends; this principle must be applies in order to guarantee the end of cruelty to animals. The application of this principle means that animals should never be experimented upon whatever the potential gain for humanity. To infect monkeys with the AIDS virus or to expose rodents to toxic chemicals and radiation is simply not acceptable, whatever the supposed benefits.

Secondly surprisingly few breakthroughs have been made as a result of animal experimentation - its advocates have overstated its achievements greatly. There has been a catalogue of errors and failures in animal testing, which its advocates simply forget; did you know as many as half the drugs that have been approved in the US and the UK after animal testing have subsequently had to be withdrawn because of harmful side-effects. Furthermore, there are alternatives to many tests that are currently done on animals - e.g. growing tissue or cell cultures from human cells in the laboratory.

Further more the production of genetic technologies has made possible all sorts of new and horrific acts of animal exploitation, from cloning sheep to creating mutant and hybrid creatures with no dignity or quality of life at all. Believe me ladies and gentlemen when I say we should end animal experimentation before things get even worse.

In practice, as everyone knows, animals are not routinely treated well by animal experimenters. Apart from the fact that millions of animals die each year in experiments, others are often not adequately anaesthetized and are abused by handlers and experimenters. It is idealistic to suppose that this will ever stop as long as society endorses vivisection. This debate ladies and gentlemen isn't solely about animal experimentation but is of animal cruelty and human values.

In fact, most animal experiments are done on animals that are nothing like human beings - rats and mice - which undermines the argument that these experiments are a reliable guide to human reactions. Scientifically, as well as morally, most animal experimentation is to be rejected - the reaction of a mouse to a substance is no guide to human reactions. Each species