Animal Rights - What Is Man Without the Beast?

Animal Rights "What is man without the beast? If the beast were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beast soon happens to man" (Chief Seattle). While much has been done to protect animals, it is nowhere near what needs to be done to secure their inhabitance on earth and give them their rights. Animals have nerves so they can feel pain and they do suffer so is it right to put them through that by experimenting on them. Additionally if more of the world 's animals are not protected a lot more will be extinct in the coming years. Finally hunting, in almost all areas, is no longer a way to gain food as it used to be, it is now just done for pure sport or "fun". Should animals have to suffer just to benefit a single race of beings? And what does it feel like to be hunted down in terror and then torn apart while still alive? The main types of animals experimented on are monkeys, cats, dogs, cattle, sheep, horses, and small mammals. Numerous amounts of tests are carried out on these animals each year. Types of tests include acute toxicity test, chronic toxicity test, skin irritation tests, acute inhalation toxicity tests, psychology research, and weapons tests as listed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or PETA (PETA fact sheet 2). An acute toxicity test is where certain chemicals are force fed to an animal to find out the lethal dosage. Chronic toxicity test is to find out whether or not a chemical can be harmful in small dosages over a period of time. Skin irritation tests are carried out by placing a

chemical on the bare skin of an animal and covering it with a plaster like material, at which point the animals are restrained. Acute inhalation toxicity tests uses aerosol products to test its effect on an animals lungs animals are killed afterwards to check the effect on its tissues. Psychology research are pointless tests that determine the obvious, like effects of shocking, mutilation, drug abuse,

Cited: "Animal Experimentation and Human Medicine" , People for Reason in Science and Medicine (PRISM), 0ctober 2004, http://www.sumeria.net/health/prism.html "Animal Experimentation (vivisection)" , people for the ethical treatment of animals (PETA), October 2004, http://www.sumeria.net/anim/tests.html Bender, D., & Leone, B. (1989). Animal rights: opposing viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc.