animal testing

3-5 minute speech

Scientists should not be allowed to test products intended for human use on animals.

My speech today is about animal testing and I am against it. Animal testing is testing cruelty more than science. Animals are not treated well and are often abused by their handlers. Imagine, living in a confined space with other animals, some insane, some infested with diseases as a result of experiments, limited movements, having people rub burning products onto you, watching your every move, that’s not a way to live. That’s no way to live. Animals will be held down by metal bands or locked in small cages with a tiny hole cut out for the head to be trapped into, so they cannot move around and be a hassle while having products rubbed onto their skin.

Each year, more than 100 million animals-including mice, rats, frogs, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, fish, birds are killed in the U.S labs alone, for biological and medical reasons. Before their death, some are forced to inhale toxic fumes, others immobilized in restraint devices for hours, some have holes drilled into their skulls, and others have their skin burned off or their spinal cords crushed. In addition to the torment of the actual experiments, animals in laboratories are deprived of everything that is natural and important to them—they are confined to barren cages, socially isolated, and psychologically traumatized. The thinking, feelings that the animals ignored, used in experiments and are treated like nothing more than disposable laboratory equipment.

There are millions of anti-abuse campaigns for the protection of children and animals. What makes animal testing different? Without realizing it, we are unconsciously turning into the monsters that we tried so hard not to be in the first place.

Animals have feelings too. They feel happiness, sadness, as well as pain. Having holes drilled into them and rubbing burning products on their skin and eyes aren’t exactly going to be painless. If the experiments were performed on a human being, it would be considered torture, what makes animals so different? Is it because they have no words do describe how they feel? Is it because their screams of pain aren’t heard? Animals can suffer like humans do, so it is discrimination to experiment on them while we refrain from experimenting on humans.
There are other more effective ways to test a product without harming animals. Using blood from human volunteers to test for the presence of fever-causing contaminants in intravenous medicines can save hundreds of thousands of rabbits each year from traditional "pyrogen" tests. Its much more humane and accurate.
We cant turn back, we cant relive the innocent creatures, we cant undo the cruelty we did, but we can stop it.