I am a vegan and have been a vegan since 2019. Veganism, to me, is a lifestyle that aims to reduce the suffering that animals face as much as one can. So, I try my best to consume products that are plant-based and also cruelty-free. Cruelty-free products are those that aren’t tested on animals. While I acknowledge that knowing whether a product has been treated on animals or not during a very long process of agriculture, manufacturing, and supply chain, I rely on different resources to decode that for myself. So, ideologically, I would love to live in a world where all experimentation on animals is bad and outlawed.
However, I also acknowledge the significant scientific discoveries, especially medical discoveries, that have been made after experimentation on animals. And I think it would be difficult in the current capitalistic world that values efficiency, productivity, and hyper-accountability to make a product viable for commercial usage without proper testing.
This is where aspects of current technological growth motivate me. I visualize a world where we wouldn’t have to resort to experimentation on other living animals. I visualize a world where we would have advanced sensory testing mechanisms that can analyze the efficiency of a particular product via a series of statistical analyses. I would love to see the world of cell-building grow such that we can test particular medicines on cells grown in lab settings without having to be subject to animal experimentation.
Because of the high costs and inaccessibility associated with alternative experimentation, experimentation on animals is currently being justified. But, I think technology will catch up with our needs soon and products can meet quality standards and effectiveness without being experimented on animals. Accelerating the development of this kind of technology is our best bet.