Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Animal experimentation : a vital source
Human rights and animal rights
Animal experimentation : a vital source
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Animal experimentation : a vital source
Animal Bill of Rights
There is a profound disparity between what people believe about animals and on how we should genuinely treat them. According to the Associated Press, two-thirds of Americans agreed with the following statement that “An animal’s right to live free of suffering should be just as important as a person’s right to live free of suffering” (Tatalovich). It is necessary that animals should be treated with more reverence and be given a Bill of Rights. For example, animals are being experimented on and kept in captivity for entertainment purposes. It is inhumane to treat animals with such devastating conditions; therefore, we should give animals the right to be liberated from exploitation, cruelty, neglect, and abuse. The cruelty
…show more content…
We subject billions of animals annually to enormous pain, suffering, and misery without the regards of their moral status. For example, if you ask an experimenter why they experiment on animals, their response would be, “Animals are like humans.” On the other hand, if you ask an experimenter why it is morally acceptable to experiment on animals, their response would be, “Animals aren’t like humans.” Animal cruelty in experiments rests on this contradiction. Animals don’t volunteer themselves to be tested on; therefore, an animal has no right to fight back if something detrimental is happening to them. Cruelty against animals portrays that our society is barbaric and inhumane to our closest relatives. In Ed Yong’s article, “Of Primates and Personhood,” Peter Singer states that “All creatures that can feel pain should have a basic set of moral rights” (Singer). Jeremy Rifkin would also agree that giving animal rights would be “allowing us to expand and deepen our empathy to include the broader community of creatures with whom we share the Earth” (Rifkin). We can list many differences between humans and animals which consequently makes a person question if animals deserve these set of rights; however, it is morally respectable to give animal rights because they don’t deserve to suffer the way we treat them
In his article entitled “Animal Liberation,” Peter Singer suggests that while animals do not have all of the exact same rights as humans, they do have an equal right to the consideration of their interests. This idea comes from the fact that animals are capable of suffering, and therefore have sentience which then follows that they have interests. Singer states “the limit to sentience...is the only defensible boundary of concern for interests of others” (807). By this, he means that the ability to feel is the only grounds for which rights should be assigned because all species of animals, including humans, have the ability, and therefore all animals have the right to not feel suffering and to instead feel pleasure.
The mass suffering of the animals, not just for a short time remember usually the suffering lasts for years, in some eyes are seen as a necessary evil on the road to medical and scientific development. This thought process falls from the hierarchy of species that has ingrained itself in human minds, the idea that humans are the most important and worthy, and thus any suffering of “inferior creatures” should not be considered when there is the possibility for advancement. This idea, however, is a flaw in moral thinking. This is not the truth.
a. A member of PETA, Tom Reagan, says that animal pain and suffering is part of
Many countries around the world agree on two basic rights, the right to liberty and the right to ones own life. Outside of these most basic human and civil rights, what do we deserve, and do these rights apply to animals as well? Human rights worldwide need to be increased and an effort made to improve lives. We must also acknowledge that “just as one wants happiness and fears pain, just as one wants to live and not die, so do other creatures” (Dalai Lama). Animals are just as capable of suffering as we are, and an effort should be made to increase their rights. Governments around the world should establish special rights that ensure the advancement and end of suffering of all sentient creatures, both human and non-human. Everyone and everything should be given the same chance to flourish and live.
Animals deserve certain rights. As Dog˘an expresses, “Animals have a right to life, to liberty in the sense of freedom of movement and communication, to subsistence, to relief from suffering, and to security against
Much is made of the pain inflicted on these animals in the name of medical science. The animal-rights activists contend that this is evidence of our malevolent and sadistic nature. A more reasonable argument, however, can be advanced in our defense. Life is often cruel, both to animals and human beings. Teenagers get thrown from the back of a pickup truck and suffer severe head injuries.
“The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.”(Arthur Schopenhauer)
In conclusion, I agree with Tom Regan’s perspective of the rights view, as it explores the concept of equality, and the concept of rightful treatment of animals and humans. If a being is capable of living, and experiencing life, then they are more than likely capable of feeling pleasure and pain, except in a few instances. If humans are still treated in a respectable and right way even if some cannot vote, or think for themselves, then it is only fair that animals who also lack in some of these abilities be treated as equals. As Regan puts it, “pain is pain, wherever it occurs” (1989).
Most would not put animals in the same category as humans so giving them the same rights seems quite ridiculous; since humans are supposed to be seen as the alpha species. What is a more realistic term is to consider them our property, because we continue to use animal testing and think it is okay to harm these animals. In the end, animal testing and research is cruel and should be done away with. It is a proven fact that animals feel pain just like humans do. No animal deserves to have his or her life purpose be to give his or her life unknowingly for science. We must to put an end to this cruelty and torture because just like humans, animals are living beings. No matter how it is perceived, it is cruel and unusual punishment.
To conclude this paper then, after reviewing the reasons for being opposed to assigning rights to non-human animals I am still faithfully for the idea. There is no justification for the barbaric and insensitive ways to which we have been treating the non-human animals with over the decades. As I stated before, they are living creatures just as we are, they have families, emotions and struggles of their own without the ones we inflict on them. So then where does this leave us? Of course it is a complicated mater, but none the less non-human animals should be protected with rights against them being used as machines, for food, for their skins, their wool, and all cases in which they are being abused.
Animals are so often forgotten when it comes to the many different levels of basic rights. No, they can’t talk, or get a job, nor can they contribute to society the way humans can. Yet they hold a special place in their owners’ hearts, they can without a doubt feel, show their different emotions, and they can most definitely love. In recent years there has been a massive increase in animal rights awareness, leading to a better understanding and knowledge in the subject of the humane treatment of animals. Where do humans draw the line between the concern of equality, and simple survival?
However, it is the purpose of this essay to convince the reader otherwise. The question at hand is: do animals deserve rights? It must certainly be true. Humans deserve rights and this claim is made on numerous appeals. Of one of the pertinent pleas is made on the claim that humans can feel emotions. More importantly, that humans are capable of suffering, and that to inflict such pain is unethical. Those who observe the tortures of the Nazi Concentration Camp are instilled with a humane creed held for all humans. But if there is no significant gulf between humans, that is to say there is no gulf based on skin color, creed, or gender that will make one human more or less valuable than any other, then by what right can a gulf be drawn out between humans and our fellow creatures? The suffering of humans is why we sympathize with each other. Since animals suffer, they deserve our sympathy.
Why Do Animals Deserve Rights? Animal Rights is “rights (as to fair and humane treatment) regarded as belonging fundamentally to all animals”. Animal rights is a subject that needs to be taken seriously because just like humans, animals also deserve rights. The three main rights animals deserve are not being used for cosmetic tests, not being kept as pets when they belong in the wild (exotic pets), and not being forced to fight each other whether it is of their own kind or not, just for personal entertainment or money.
Animals have their own rights as do to humans and we should respect that and give them the same respect we give each other. Animals deserve to be given those same basic rights as humans. All humans are considered equal and ethical principles and legal statutes should protect the rights of animals to live according to their own nature and remain free from exploitation. This paper is going to argue that animals deserve to have the same rights as humans and therefore, we don’t have the right to kill or harm them in any way. The premises are the following: animals are living things thus they are valuable sentient beings, animals have feeling just like humans, and animals feel pain therefore animal suffering is wrong. 2 sources I will be using for my research are “The Fight for Animal Rights” by Jamie Aronson, an article that presents an argument in favour of animal rights. It also discusses the counter argument – opponents of animal rights argue that animals have less value than humans, and as a result, are undeserving of rights. Also I will be using “Animal Liberation” by Peter Singer. This book shows many aspects; that all animals are equal is the first argument or why the ethical principle on which human equality rests requires us to extend equal consideration to animals too.
... the world. Whether we choose to accept it or not, animals should have rights just like we do because they deserve them. They should have a right to live until they die and not to be killed, they should have a right to be treated with care and respect, and they should have a right not to end up as some people’s dinner in a cruel way. Non human animals can feel happy, pain, sadness, fear, love and even anger and so just because we have the power to completely dominate them does not give us a right not to accord them their rights, they deserve them. We are all living things, we all have fear and love, we all breath and so all of us should have rights.