Whether it be new pharmaceutical drugs or makeup products, testing on animals is morally wrong. Humans have been testing on animals since ancient Greek times and even then there were better solutions. The people of ancient Greece were not shy about their public executions and sacrifices to the gods leaving them more than enough human bodies to dissect. Today animal testing still continues to happen with even less justification. Today 110 million animals are killed annually including dogs, cats, monkeys, rabbits and mice with the only explanation being for the up-and-coming beauty line. Animals have as much right to this planet as we do and using them like machines will only end poorly both for them and all other life on the planet. We must do all we can to preserve the life we currently have because without it we lose what makes this planet diverse and beautiful as well as our means to live.

Whether or not humans should or should not do animal testing could be answered for those who are Christian by the second half of Genesis 1:26 where it is written that man should have the animals under his control to do as he likes. Other than that, animals are one of the resources on Earth that I think humans have hardly harnessed. The only uses that I know of are basic products like food, and rarely for adhesives. I think organisms can be used for more synthetic materials. For example, horses are used to make the previously mentioned Horse glue due to their bodies having an abundance of collagen that becomes sticky when heated and refined. Contrary to how this sounds, the process is very humane, and it is illegal to raise horses just for the purpose of killing them and sending them to a glue factory. Usually the horses are horses that have died of natural causes or euthanized for some other reason. The same can be said for animal testing, pigs have an organ structure and anatomy very similar to humans. If pigs find something faulty in an experimental medicine or chemical that can be changed so that it saves human lives then why not use them for this cause? And while I do not see myself as above nature, I do think I would rather have a human help me than a crocodile, it’s simple altruism.