Someday, possibly quite soon, someone (probably a large number of several someones) in an ER might be saved from death or brain damage due to a better understanding of how brain tissue acts under a lack of oxygen and blood supply.
If we were living in a world where we don't eat or we constitute our food from raw materials directly then we could be questioning the morality if this, but we live in a world where we eat corndogs and fried chicken.
We can't yet live without killing something to eat (and plants are more alive than most give credit).
I'd say in our current context this kind of research, done as humanely as possible, should be allowed.
Deathrow prisoners are a non starter for a lot of practical reasons (not to mention a lot of clear cut moral and social ones).
For me, deathrow itself is a non starter. I get your point about ... well, I remember New Scientist used to have a back page cartoon called "Albert the experimental rat". I'm still a subscriber but Albert was consigned to the history books a few years back.
I note your point about plants being "more alive" but I think that plants are perhaps more complicated, rather than more alive. The interplay between fungi and trees is quite well documented now and getting more interesting.
We might like to do some more basic studies first, before involving torture on non humans. For example:
When the covid-19 pandemic really kicked off, critical care wards fairly quickly discovered that lying intubated patients on their side instead of back sometimes helped. How on earth did that become a thing? Ask anyone with, say: a history of breathlessness due to long term smoking - "do you have a preferred side to sleep on, or your back?"
How about sciatica? I have largely cured mine. I am now 53. I used to have episodes lasting from a few days to a few months of crippling pain. I suffered from it starting around age 30ish.
I used to keep my wallet in my back pocket. I put 2+2 together aged around 48 and around five years later, I don't have sciatica any more. Just to ram the point home: I kept a leather wallet in my right back pocket. It was a hard surface under my bum and must have caused occasional damage to one of my sciatic nerves.
Top tip: sit on your arse and nothing else!
I'm an IT bod and I have to occasionally pick up SANs weighing something like 50Kg - for the last few years, that's not a problem: My back is fine now.
If we were living in a world where we don't eat or we constitute our food from raw materials directly then we could be questioning the morality if this, but we live in a world where we eat corndogs and fried chicken.
We can't yet live without killing something to eat (and plants are more alive than most give credit).
I'd say in our current context this kind of research, done as humanely as possible, should be allowed.
Deathrow prisoners are a non starter for a lot of practical reasons (not to mention a lot of clear cut moral and social ones).