My speech is on animal rights, and I believe that animal testing is just morally wrong.
Animals have been used in medical research for centuries. In a recent count, it was determined that 8,815 animals were being used for research at MSU, including rats, mice, hamsters, gerbils, dogs, cats, goats, ferrets, pigeons, and rabbits. The struggle against this tyranny is a struggle as important as any of the moral and social issues that have been fought over in recent years. For decades, the value of animal research has been grossly overrated. Although researchers have depended on animal test data to achieve medical advances, there should be other means of research because testing on animals is cruel and inhumane and often unnecessary.
The American Medical Association believes that research involving animals is absolutely essential to maintaining and improving the health of the American people. They point out, that virtually every advance in medical science in the 20th century, from antibiotics to organ transplants, has been achieved either directly or indirectly through the use of animals in laboratory experiments. They also emphasize that animal research holds the key for solutions to AIDS, cancer, heart disease, aging and congenital defects. This has meant a longer, healthier, better life with much less pain and suffering.
However, there should be other means of research because the whole process of animal research remains cruel and inhumane. Animal rights activists have gathered much information that has closed down laboratories that violate anti-cruelty statutes. For example, a 1984 videotape was stolen from the University of Pennsylvania Head Injury Clinic. The research was later suspended, but it supposedly involved inadequately anesthetized baboons receiving blows to the head to break their necks and cause brain damage. The animals were also kept in cages so small that they couldn't even turn around, separated from each other, and fed scarcely.
