Upvoted because anecdote made me laugh. Not having object permanence must be so confusing!

I agree with your stance here, and I'm self-admittedly probably one of the very few people on the site who extends ethical weight to the mindstates and experiences of nonhuman animals -- not all experiments are necessarily harmful, and some research in primatology is relatively benign.

Same time, it takes a certain kind of obliviousness to deny that these beings suffer horribly, on a routine basis, in the course of much research. I've got a friend in primatology who calls it "nightmare stuff" -- the kinds of invasive and painful experiments conducted even today are frightening, and chimps have very long lives.