Is animal testing justified to save human lives?

Daily Debate #561: "Is animal testing justified to save human lives?". You are arguing AGAINST the motion. Your opponent: Carl Sagan.

this house would replace all flat rates fines for non violent offences with an income fine based day fine system i am opposing

You're defending the status quo where a $500 fine crushes a poor person but barely inconveniences a millionaire. Why should identical crimes carry radically different punishment based on wealth rather than culpability? Where's the justice in that?

You're confusing punishment with outcome. A $500 fine IS identical punishment for identical crimes, regardless of wealth. Income-based fines don't achieve justice, they achieve equality of pain, which punishes the successful for earning more. That's not fairness, that's wealth redistribution masquerading as criminal justice.

You're inverting the purpose of fines. Punishment means consequence—and a $500 fine has zero consequence for someone earning $200k annually but devastates someone earning $25k. Same nominal amount, wildly different deterrent effect. You're not punishing crime equally, you're just pretending you are. How is a meaningless fine actual justice?

You're smuggling deterrence into a definition of punishment. The law doesn't promise equal suffering, it promises equal consequence for equal crime. A $500 fine IS that consequence. If you want deterrence, that's a separate policy goal, and you don't achieve it by penalizing success. You're arguing we should make laws punish people differently based on income to reach your deterrence target. That's not justice adjusting, that's the goal of the law itself changing.

You're splitting hairs between "consequence" and "effect" to dodge the core problem. A $500 fine *is* a different consequence for a poor person versus a rich one—one loses groceries, the other loses dinner money. Same nominal penalty, different actual burden. You're defending equal treatment that produces unequal outcomes, then calling that justice because you didn't *intend* inequality. Why should the law be blind to what it actually does?