Animals used in research.

The ethical questions raised by performing experiments on animals are subject to much debate, and viewpoints have shifted significantly over the 20th century. There remain strong disagreements about which animal testing procedures are useful for which purposes, as well as disagreements over which ethical principles apply, and to which species of animals. The dominant ethical position, world-wide, is that achievement of scientific and medical goals using animal testing is desirable, provided that animal suffering and use is minimized. The British government has additionally required that the cost to animals in an experiment be weighed against the gain in knowledge.

A wide range of minority viewpoints exist as well. The view that animals have moral rights (animal rights) is a philosophical position proposed by Tom Regan, who argues that animals are beings with beliefs, desires and self-consciousness. Such beings are seen as having inherent value and thus possessing rights. Regan still sees clear ethical differences between killing animals and killing humans, and argues that to save human lives it is permissible to kill animals. However, some such as Bernard Rollin have taken his position further and argue that any benefits to human beings cannot outweigh animal suffering, and that human beings have no moral right to use an individual animal in ways that do not benefit that individual. Another prominent position is articulated by Peter Singer, who sees no convincing reason to include a being's species in considerations of whether their suffering is important in utilitarian moral considerations. Although these arguments have not been widely accepted, in response to these concerns some governments such as the Netherlands and New Zealand have outlawed invasive experiments on certain classes of non-human primates, particularly the Great Apes.

Sure enough this type of research may seem inhumane to most people. This is done to ensure that the product produced are safe to use by us. Just imagine that the researcher will need to first test on a HUMAN, which i believe no one would ever want to be a volunteer. So i still think that testing on animals are necessary, as it is the only solution left for us. Unless, someone would suggest that human should be tested on instead of animals.