Do we own animals...or do we simply care for them as pets and use them in our experiments and research?
What distinguishes a pet from a lab/test animal..What characteristics make them any different from each other? Do the tests we do actually have significance and how far can we take them?
These are the debated questions many researchers stray from answering..These tests are supposedly for the better of humanity..but what do the animals get from them?
What is it that gives us the right to pluck a species from its natural environment to cram it into a cage, breed it as often as we see fit, stick needles in its eyes and burn its skin?
Often it is said that because animals can't feel as much pain, this is an acceptable practice...They say that if they felt it, they would scream or fight back. Truth being is that many of them do scream and even cry (cows and chickens will cry tears similar to humans)...Fighting back isn't an option with as many restraints as they have preventing it.
Others say this is justified because it is the only way for medical and scientific research to make any type of advances...Truth being, according to many scientific American researchers, trends in animal research, over half these 'necessary' tests are actually for unnecessary reasons.
Many of the tests performed are without any type of pain killers, even after the tests are performed. This is done so the results are in the purest form...
Many opinions on animal rights are formed by being educated on the subject. This could be why many scientists are changing their ways and substituting test tubes for test rats and have even admitted some of their faults in procedure.
Many researchers have been brainwashed and trained into thinking animals aren't anything but "stimulus-response bundles".This is how they can do these procedures without having any regret about the agony they induce almost mechanically.
Many choose not to think of these b...