That’s why animal rights activists warn against planned animal testing laws News

Berlin – Animals in experimental laboratories also have rights. There are laws designed to protect them from even worse torment. But this protection could soon be weakened: The federal government is planning its own law for laboratory animals – separate from the previous animal protection law. Animal rights activists are now up in arms against the “animal testing law”.

The coalition agreement states about the proposed law: “We are giving research more freedom and freeing it from small-scale funding bureaucracy, and we are creating an independent law for scientific research Animal testing.“The aim is faster research and more competitiveness.

An alliance of ten animal protection organizations had already submitted a petition against the planned law at the beginning of February 2026. “Millions of animals that are used and killed every year in experiments and for scientific purposes could be tortured even more and finally legally killed without the ‘reasonable reason’ required by the Animal Welfare Act,” it said in a statement. In the Animal Protection Act, “reasonable cause” is a central criterion: pain, suffering or killing may not occur arbitrarily.

Veterinary doctor Dr. Kirsten Tönnies (58, “mensch, fair, tier” association): “Test animals could be removed from the protection of the Animal Welfare Act and thus deprived of legal protection standards.” Animals are already being kept in cages and subjected to experiments, such as monkeys: “They Animals Sometimes they are kept awake for hours in so-called monkey chairs, with rods attached to their skulls. Six hours a day are allowed.”

These are the main concerns of animal rights activists

The veterinarian also warns that in the future, interventions could be more easily permitted without sufficient anesthesia. Amputations or killings could also be more easily protected legally. Many animals are killed even though, according to Tönnies, they “could have a nice, good life.”

The biomedical association counters: “It’s not about a reduction in animal welfare standards”

Prof. Dr. is in favor of the new law. Thomas Korff from the Biology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine in Germany: A separate law should standardize and accelerate procedures and give researchers legal certainty. It is “not about a reduction in animal welfare standards. Furthermore, it is neither in the interests of researchers nor of administrative authorities that the high level of protection status of laboratory animals that has been achieved so far changes.”

And what does the federal government say? A spokesman for the responsible Ministry of Agriculture confirms to BILD that it is still being adhered to, but that there is currently no comment on concrete implementation.