Mice Show Empathy, Science Shows None

Mice help their unconscious friends. Scientists test on them anyway.

Researchers at the University of Southern California found that mice engage in what can only be described as first aid - licking, grooming, and even pulling the tongues of unconscious cage mates to try to revive them. They distinguish between those who are asleep, unconscious, or dead, showing an awareness beyond what many humans would assume.  

This study only happened because mice are the most commonly used animals in laboratory experiments. They make up around 95% of all test subjects, not because they are the best models for human biology, but because they are small, easy to handle, and cheap to breed. Their lives, as individuals, don’t matter to the system that exploits them.

Meanwhile, in Australia, adolescent female rats were subjected to non-fatal strangulation, their tiny bodies crushed under the weight of silicon bands. Some were shot in the head with high-speed projectiles. Others endured both. Then they were forced to walk, perform memory tasks, and, finally, killed.

This wasn’t some fringe experiment. It was a government-funded study at Monash University and Alfred Health, supposedly designed to improve brain injury detection in human survivors of domestic violence. The justification? A lack of “human-relevant alternatives.” The reality? Human biomarkers for brain trauma are already well-documented. The experiment was pointless.  

Ethics Committees That Rubber-Stamp Suffering

Scientific institutions claim that experiments like these undergo “rigorous ethical review.” In reality, ethics committees exist to approve - not prevent - animal testing. They weigh “potential benefits” against “costs,” with the animals’ interests never considered. Approval is granted behind closed doors, with no transparency, no public oversight, and no genuine challenge to the assumption that animal lives are disposable.  

In the case of the rat strangulation study, there were no public documents explaining why it was necessary. No justification for why researchers ignored existing human-based methods like neuroimaging and computational models. Just another routine approval in a system built on speciesist entitlement.  

The same entitlement that drives animal testing is found in other forms of exploitation - hunting, farming, fur industries, and blood sports. It’s no surprise that men, statistically, support animal experimentation more than women. Studies show a clear link between lower empathy, social dominance, and a belief in human supremacy over other species.

But even among those who claim to oppose cruelty, animal testing is often excused as a necessary evil. The reality is, it’s neither necessary nor scientifically valid.

The Future of Research Isn’t in a Cage

Mice, like other social animals, show concern for their injured and unconscious friends. They offer help, while humans in white lab coats strap them down, inject them with chemicals, and suffocate them in the name of “progress.” The disconnect is staggering.

The world is already moving beyond outdated animal testing methods. Human-relevant research is accelerating, but old institutions cling to the past, funnelling billions into experiments that produce unreliable, inconsistent results.

Abolition is the only answer. Not refinement, not reduction - abolition. Because as long as animals are seen as mere tools for human ends, the suffering will continue. And as long as ethics committees exist only to greenlight the next round of experiments, nothing will change.

Until speciesism is dismantled, animals will keep suffering in silence behind closed lab doors.