The use of animals in laboratories (vivisection) has sparked stormy debates. Certain extremist animal rights groups are dead-set against it and have even resorted to organizing raids to free test subjects from laboratories. Other more moderate organizations prefer discussions and finding alternate solutions.
The debate over animal rights became an issue in the early 1800s, to counterbalance the influence in the West of the theories of the French philosopher René Descartes (1596 – 1650), who considered animals as nothing more than machines and a dog's yelps of pain merely mechanical reflexes. In those days, dissections were commonly performed on live animals (without anaethestic).