Ideology in My Controversy

In my assessment of the topic of animal testing, I have explored many different sources relating to this controversial issue. In this post I will  answer questions about the different groups I have discovered through my research.

On one side of the argument are animal rights organizations which want to ban the animal testing in laboratories because they believe it to be unethical. On the other side are research groups who believes that the benefits to human medicine outweigh the ethical arguments against animal testing.

Some of the major speakers for the group opposed to animal testing are PETA and the Beagle Freedom Project who beleive that animal testing is torture. A major speaker for the use of animals in research is the National Association of Biomedical research which would obviously believe in the benefits that come from such testing.

Groups like PETA and other pro-animal rights groups have an immense amount of social, cultural, and political power over the animal lovers of the nation. Widely known for their horror stories, animal rights organizations carry a lot of weight with the public. Conversely, pro-testing groups carry a lot of power in the medical world. The scientific breakthroughs that come from this testing are enough to convince many people that the testing is worth it.

The resources available to both sides are basically the same. They both have access to scientific studies to prove their cases, as well as literal proof that can be found in the lab through scientific studies or physical evidence.

The pro-animal righters value the ethical treatment of animals. They believe that animal testing is the same as animal abuse, and as such they believe it should be outlawed. On the other hand, research facilities using these animals value the advancement of knowledge to potentially save human lives. Through animal testing they believe that they can produce better medicine and products that otherwise could not be obtained without human suffering.

For the groups that support animal testing, evidence for their case is the medical breakthroughs and human benefit that comes from the use of animals in labs. For the groups for animal rights, their evidence comes in the form of the gruesome aftereffects of the testing on the animals and the caged life they live in the laboratories.

ClkerFreeVectorImages "Co-Workers Arguing Argue Workers People Yelling" via pixabay. CC0 Public Domain

In my opinion the research facilities hold more power than the pro-animal organizations because despite the activists' protests, there is still animal testing. People also tend to give hard core credibility to science because it is typically proved with concrete fact. However people on the ethical side of things are harder to give power to because ethics are so subjective. Power tends to gravitate to the group with the concrete facts, and I believe this is also the case in this debate.

Usually it is agreed upon that although the animals will be used for research, they deserve to be treated with common decency. The research companies are not intentionally malicious to the animals they test, and even are known to release the animals after a certain amount of time in captivity. In all of the sources I reviewed, even when they were pro-testing, they talked about the need to make the animal's experience as calm and painless as possible. Although this is far from what organizations like PETA want, they at least can find the common ground in that fact.

The uncommon ground between them is basically the source of the argument. The research facilities are unable to compromise the fact that animal testing has a variety of uses, and animal rights activists are unable to compromise that the animals are in pain and being, in a way, tortured. The difference is in the groups' ethical value, and views that strongly held are not likely to change anytime soon.

The groups do respond quite a bit to each other. However animal rights activists tend to be much more vocal about their dissent. This comes from the fact that the research groups are already in place and just have to hold their ground while the pro-animal groups have to fight to gain ground. Therefore as a result the activists are constantly releasing statements about new horrors they've unveiled, while the research groups just have to calmly counter these revelations.