it's really fucking stupid. We give care and consideration to pets, and if we did to pets what we do to the animals we eat, we'd get locked up for years. It's called speciesism.

Protections seem probably more important for putting them through unusual experiences that may involve suffering than killing them for food, as that's essentially predation which they experience as a natural part of life

There's an argument to be had that we as humans are intelligent enough to choose not to put animals through that which is why lots of folks choose to be vegan, but eating animals is more of a personal ethical choice, whereas funding research conducted on animals kinda needs to be a societal one given it's funder by other parts of society, and research is generally for the benefit of society; so society needs to be the ones to decide whether the research is ethical. Not sure I articulated quite what I mmea, but hopefully what I'm trying to say makes sense