Is animal testing justified to save human lives?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Is animal testing justified to save human lives?". Your opponent's style: Carl Sagan

i think it is, because animals are less important to us due to being different species

That's a dangerous road you're walking. "Different species" is exactly what slavery advocates said about different races. Moral worth doesn't hinge on taxonomy. We already have alternatives—human tissue models, computer simulations, organ-on-a-chip technology. Yet we torture millions of animals yearly while 90% of drugs tested on them fail in humans anyway. You're sacrificing sentient beings for data that doesn't even work. The real question isn't whether animals matter less. It's whether we're willing to stay intellectually lazy when better methods exist. Why inflict needless suffering when science has moved beyond it?