Rise Against: 'Animal Testing Breaks Hearts'

By Shan Phillips

Since their inception in 1999, Rise Against has made a lasting impression in the alternative music community by staying true to their roots and making music with a powerful message. Whether its speaking up for human rights in 2004's "Prayer of the Refugee" or speaking out against the destruction of our planet in "Collapse (Post-Amerika)" from 2008's Appeal to Reason, Rise Against has always used their popularity to address the social justice issues that are important to them.

One issue that the band has always felt strongly about is animal rights—so who better to receive peta2's 2008 Libby Award for Best Animal-Friendly Band than Rise Against? In the past, the band has publicly denounced Canada's annual seal slaughter, encouraged the presence of pro-animal informational tables at their shows, aired the animal-friendly director's cut of "Ready to Fall" exclusively on peta2.com, and starred in numerous interviews about animal rights for our site. This time, Rise Against is joining our ever-popular "Animal Testing Breaks Hearts" campaign—focusing on the fact that many companies still perform cruel testing of cosmetics, hair-care products, and other personal-care products on animals, despite the availability of humane alternatives.

Check it out …

Rise Against:
"Animal Testing Breaks Hearts"

Rise Against is right—animal testing does break hearts. Every year in testing laboratories, millions of animals, including rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, and rats, are forced to inhale and ingest products such as hairspray and household cleaners and have cosmetics rubbed into their eyes. Since these animals are significantly different than humans, these cruel tests often lead to inaccurate and misleading results. Thankfully, there are more than 700 cruelty-free companies that have banned animal testing and use more humane methods, such as computer models, cell cultures, and voluntary human studies.

If you feel like Rise Against does about product testing on animals, be sure to pledge to boycott companies that test on animals by adding your signature to our tree of hearts here.