“Animal experimentation cannot be justified”

📍Please refer to the questions mid way through the text for this debate.📍

In 2013, the Home Office announced that the number of animals used in scientific experiments rose 8% between 2008 and 2012, reaching 4.11 million despite coalition pledges to lower it [Ref: Daily Mail]. While animal rights campaigners see this increase as evidence that the scientific community are failing to meet ethical duties to avoid harming animals [Ref: Guardian], advocates of animal testing claim its potential benefit to medical and scientific progress are a necessary evil outweighing other concerns [Ref: Huffington Post]. Two fundamental issues are at stake. First, there is the scientific question of the nature of the contribution that animal experiments make to medical and scientific progress. Second is the moral status of animals. These ethical issues first came to prominence in the 1970s when the publication of Peter Singer’s book ‘Animal Liberation’ helped launch the animal rights movement.

What I would like to be debated:

❓can animal experimentation be justified? Justify in your answer

❓if animal experimentation became banned what are the alternatives?

❓do the lives of animals equal humans or are they outweighed?

❓what would you like to see in the future regarding animal experimentation

✏️ References:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2365694/UK-animal-testing-criticised-campaigners-following-20-rise-experiments-using-MONKEYS.html

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/18/animal-testing-talk-about-medical-research

https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/chris-magee/cosmetic-testing-on-animals_b_2955849.html