“Without Consent,” PETA’s new traveling exhibit, challenges human exploitation of animals by revealing the long history of suffering inflicted on nonconsenting animals in laboratories. The exhibit features almost 200 stories of animals used in real-life experiments, from decades ago through the present. PETA debuted the exhibit in Washington, D.C., where research grants are chosen and awarded, and will display it in city centers and on college campuses around the country. See Without Consent on tour near you!
Now anyone can visit “Without Consent” virtually here and read the stories of animals who’ve endured harrowing experiments—including dogs forced to inhale cigarette smoke for months or electroshocked so many times that they gave up even trying to escape, newborn monkeys taken from their mothers and raised alone in a “pit of despair” to induce devastating mental illness, hamsters addicted to street drugs and forced to fight, mice cut up while still alive and conscious, and cats deafened, drowned, and paralyzed.
Humans are just one species among many, and it’s speciesist to believe that we have the right to experiment on other animals using the misguided excuse that it might help human patients. Animals aren’t objects for us to use—they’re individuals, just like us. When we look into an animal’s eyes, there’s someone, not something, looking back at us—someone who feels hunger, thirst, pain, fear, joy, and love and who makes decisions, has preferences, overcomes challenges, and uses language (even though we may not be able to speak it or understand it).
We can’t change history—but we can help create a better future.
At this moment, tens of millions of living, feeling beings just like us are being held prisoner in laboratories throughout the U.S. They’re deprived of anything that might make their bleak lives worthwhile. They’re repeatedly poked, prodded, biopsied, infected, injected, and robbed of their babies. Many are kept in isolation inside steel cages with nothing to see or do. Almost all of them will be killed if they survive the living conditions and tests.
There is a better way—and PETA scientists have developed it. The Research Modernization Deal outlines a roadmap and strategy for ending experiments on animals and for conducting research that’s relevant to humans. We’ve sent it to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other federal agencies—except for the Environmental Protection Agency, which has already worked with our scientists to begin phasing out animal tests.