Argument for Stopping Animal Abuse

Executive Summary

Every 60 seconds an animal is abused. Dogs, cats, horses, and many other types of animals are being neglected and tortured everyday, yet resulting in few and minor consequences for the perpetrators. Animal abuse is prevalent in the United States and has been an ongoing issue since the 1970's, and prior to. Society as a whole has chosen to avoid the facts and arguments about animal cruelty, because to some it is seen as acceptable and typical. It becomes much more frowned upon when people actually see the results of the cruelty, especially in the media.

Abuse towards animals is recognized by many in the commercials shown on television, including the Sarah McLaughlin song and the pictures of animals starved and beaten. The commercials are shown quite regularly and give viewers a small look into the world of animal cruelty. What the commercials do not show, however, are the countless cases of people getting away with violence, as well as the hundreds of thousands of animals whom did not live to make the commercials. Television, radio, and internet ads often depict and portray the lives of animals living in shelters, and ask of the public to donate money each month for the cause. Without a doubt, this is the extent of what many people can say their experience with animal cruelty consists of: pictures and short video clips of half-dead dogs and cats left to die in over-crowded housing.

The ugly truth is that animals are dying at the hands of their owners everyday, some in very violent ways that can be avoidable given the right solution. Slaughterhouses, puppy mills, dog fighting, and so on, are just a few examples of how animals are being treated badly by people. Animal cruelty is a form of violence which, un...

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...glected due to the severity of both acts of violence. Also, violence towards animals needs to be included in assessments for child protective services, in order to better prevent animals being placed in dangerous hands.

WORKS CITED

Peter Singer, Animal Libertation, 2nd ed. (NewYork: New York Review of Books, 1990), i.

The book of Genesis, The Bible.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, from Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, ed. And annotated Anton C. Pegis (New York: Random House, 1945), Second Part of the Second Part, Question 64, Article 1.

Tom Regan, “The Case for Animal Rights,” in In Defense of Animals, ed. Peter Singer (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), 21.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistical Services, Livestock Slaughter:

2005 Summary, March 2006: USDA, NASS, Poultry Slaughter: 2005 Summary, February 2006.