Why Is Animal Testing Unethical

Animal testing has been a debate for 30 years as the practice raises ethical and moral questions. Each year, more than 100 million animals are killed in the United States ("Experiments on Animals: Overview”). Animal testing is the procedure where animals are used for testing of drugs, cosmetic, food, and chemical testing. It is done before human trials take place so that researchers and scientists can modify the product before asking human testers to try it. With the current technology, the debate has shifted to not using animals to test any product. Stores such as The Body Shop and Lush are against animal testing and do not sell products that have been tested on animals (Williamson, 2015). Animal testing should be banned as it is unethical,
Animal testing is unethical because their rights are avoided and do not get the choice to participate in the experiment ("Experiments on Animals: Overview”). The animals not only die after the research is done but are abused throughout the process. It is a painful process for the animals as they are often not given food and water. Most of the time, they are restrained for long periods and wounds and pain are inflicted to see the effects of medicines, cosmetics, and chemicals. Sometimes, they can be killed on purpose as part of the process. An example would be, if contact lenses cause irritation to the subject’s eyes, in order to evaluate the irritation, clips would be used to keep the subject’s eyes open for a couple of days. While this happens, they cannot blink which causes further irritation to their eyes. Moreover, they are confined to empty cages and they are not in their natural environment. They could also be forced to have unknown and harmful substances injected into their eyes or breathe fumes which are toxic. Some experiments have also been done where they are injected with chemicals to see how much would kill them (“Top Five Reasons to Stop Animal Testing",