Argumentative Essay Outline
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Outline for an Argumentative Essay

Topic:Should we use animals to test products on?

I. Introduction

1. Hook/Lead: Testing and experimenting on animals has been going on from as early as 500 B.C about 2,500 years ago. (p.2 from newsela)
2. Bridge (background info): “The Roman physician and philosopher Galen dissected living animals in the 2nd century. He wanted to see how living creatures worked.English doctor William Harvey experimented on living animals in the 17th century. He discovered that the heart, and not the lungs, circulated blood throughout the body.”(p.2 from newsela)
3. Thesis Statement: Animals should not be tested on because it is cruel and inhumane.        

II. Body #1

A) Topic Sentence: Animals should not be tested on because it’s cruel.

 i. Evidence #1/Explained:”According to Humane Society International, animals used in experiments are commonly subjected to force feeding, forced inhalation, food and water deprivation, prolonged periods of physical restraint, the infliction of burns and other wounds to study the healing process, the infliction of pain to study its effects and remedies, and "killing by carbon dioxide asphyxiation, neck-breaking, decapitation, or other means." This piece of evidence presented previously is from ProCon.org and shows that it is cruel and inhumane because the animals being tested on are being force fed and other inhumane treatments.  

ii. Evidence #2/Explained: “ Drugs that pass animal tests are not necessarily safe. The 1950s sleeping pill thalidomide, which caused 10,000 babies to be born with severe deformities, was tested on animals prior to its commercial release.  Later tests on pregnant mice, rats, guinea pigs, cats, and hamsters did not result in birth defects unless the drug was administered at extremely high doses. Animal tests on the arthritis drug Vioxx showed that it had a protective effect on the hearts of mice, yet the drug went on to cause more than 27,000 heart attacks and sudden cardiac deaths before being pulled from the market.”  This piece of evidence presented previously is from ProCon.org and shows that not all treatments tested on animals have the same effect on humans.

B) Transition Sentence: Leading to the fact that humans shouldn’t use animals for testing products on.

 III. Body #2

A) Topic Sentence: Animals are not like humans so we should not test on them.

 i Evidence #1/Explained: “Most experiments involving animals are flawed, wasting the lives of the animal subjects. A 2009 peer-reviewed study found serious flaws in the majority of publicly funded US and UK animal studies using rodents and primates. 87% of the studies failed to randomize the selection of animals (a technique used to reduce "selection bias") and 86% did not use "blinding" (another technique to reduce researcher bias). Also, "only 59% of the studies stated the hypothesis or objective of the study and the number and characteristics of the animals used." Since the majority of animals used in biomedical research are killed during or after the experiments, and since many suffer during the studies, the lives and wellbeing of animals are routinely sacrificed for poor research.” The information presented above is from ProCon.org and shows that not all animal testing is good, even though we use things that get tested on animals almost everyday.

ii. Evidence #2/Explained: “Animals can suffer like humans do, so it is speciesism to experiment on them while we refrain from experimenting on humans. All suffering is undesirable, whether it be in humans or animals. Discriminating against animals because they do not have the cognitive ability, language, or moral judgment that humans do is no more justifiable than discriminating against human beings with severe mental impairments.  As English philosopher Jeremy Bentham wrote in the 1700s, ‘The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" The piece of textual evidence presented previously is from ProCon.org, this states that it is cruel and mean to make animals suffer.

  B) Transition Sentence: Leading to the fact that animals can feel pain and can also suffer.

IV. Body #3

A) Topic Sentence: There should be different ways to find cures and things other than using animals to test on.

i. Evidence #1/Explained:  “Animals are very different from human beings and therefore make poor test subjects. The anatomic, metabolic, and cellular differences between animals and people make animals poor models for human beings.” This piece of evidence is from ProCon.org, this proves that not all animal testing is accurate for humans.

ii. Evidence #2/Explained: “Animal tests are more expensive than alternative methods and are a waste of government research dollars. Humane Society International compared a variety of animal tests with their in vitro counterparts. An "unscheduled DNA synthesis" animal test costs $32,000, while the in vitro alternative costs $11,000.”  This piece of evidence is from ProCon.org, this goes to show that there should be an alternate method for animal testing.

B) Transition Sentence: Animal test lead to losing lots of  money that could be used for other things like finding alternate methods to find cures.

V. Counter Claims

1. Topic Sentence: I understand that animal testing is important to some things like finding cures for diseases and or finding medicine recipes but sometimes its cruel and inhumaine.

i.Counter Claim #1: I understand that animals testing had led to great medical discovering but it wastes lives of poor animals.

ii. Evidence to Dispute Counter Claim #1: “Animal testing has contributed to many life-saving cures and treatments. The California Biomedical Research Association states that nearly every medical breakthrough in the last 100 years has resulted directly from research using animals.”

      B) Counter Claim #2:  I know cosmetics and health care products are used on animals  but we can live without some cosmetics.

iv. Evidence to Dispute Counter Claim #2: “Some cosmetics and health care products must be tested on animals to ensure their safety. American women use an average of 12 personal care products per day, so product safety is of great importance.  The US Food and Drug Administration endorses the use of animal tests on cosmetics to "assure the safety of a product or ingredient." China requires that all cosmetics be tested on animals before they go on sale, so cosmetics companies must have their products tested on animals if they want distribution in China.  Mosquito repellent, which helps protect people from malaria and other dangerous illnesses, must undergo toxicological testing (which involves animal testing) in order to be sold in the United States and Europe.

      C) Tie Up Sentence: Overall animal testing can be used for the greater good but it is cruel and harsh on animals.

VI. Conclusion

A)  Restated These Statement: Animals should not be tested on because it is cruel and inhumane.

B) Tie up fact or statement:Overall i think it is not good or nie to test on them but it happens and it most likely won’t stop.