Is animal testing morally right?
I don’t think it’s as black and white as that. I’m very much against animal testing for products such as cosmetic and cleaning materials, and I am against animal experimentation for its own sake. Genuine medical research is a different and more difficult issue; I am not convinced that there are more reliable ways to test drugs. I wish there were, but I’m not convinced, and it is too simplistic to argue that animals are not physically the same as us or that some drugs that have been found safe in animals have proved unsafe for humans. Most medical advances would not have taken place without animal testing. Sometimes we have to consider the lesser of two evils. Either saying that you are completely against it or that you wouldn’t accept drugs tested on animals is to ignore a number of important issues. If you were seriously, life-threateningly ill, would the fact that procedures and drugs you would need for treatment had almost certainly been tested on animals stop you from accepting the
