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Jeremy Rifkin is an American writer, public speaker, and activist who wrote a meaningfully dense article for the Los Angeles Times titled "A Change Of Heart About Animals." His article defends animal rights and disputes many myths regarding animals. Rifkin argues that animals do have a sense of individualism, experience emotions akin to humans, learn from past experiences, display self-awareness, and that “They are more like us than we imagined” (Rifkin). After reading the article, I can personally say that I agree with Rifkin on supporting animal rights. Animals are creatures who should not be abused just to end up on our dinner plates, which is why the treatment of animals needs to improve. In order to properly respect animals, we need to …show more content…
embrace the set of rights that animals are due. Jeremy Rifkin highlights the heights of animals, referencing articles that display impressive cognitive animal behaviors, all of which I agree with.
These behaviors reflect the animal’s human-like intelligence, such as Abel and Betty the crow snagging meat from difficult locations, to Koko the gorilla learning sign language. Rifkin refutes the claim that animals are not self-aware by presenting examples from philosophers and animals behaviorists. Their study finds that animals are able to have a sense of individualism such as “an orangutan named Chantek who… used a mirror to groom his teeth and adjusted his sunglasses.” All of these acts, which are so reminiscent of the way humans operate, makes it hard for us not to empathize with their compassion and see a bit of ourselves in these creatures. However, in spite of animals exhibiting great behavior, the mistreatment of animals is still experienced in labs, fashion industries, factory farming, and various other …show more content…
places. The magnitude of animals lives are put at risk by asserting that humans are more intelligent than animals. Opponents of animal rights justify this cruelty toward animals, claiming that since animals are not as intelligent or rational as humans, they do not deserve certain protections and safeguards. Due to this reason, humans are able to emotionally remove themselves from the painful lab procedure that the animals go through. According to the New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS) article titled “Harm and Suffering”, “Animals in labs suffer not only pain from protocols, but also severe stress from day-to-day laboratory life.” Under those circumstances, these creatures live in barricaded concrete cells, hardly exposed to daylight or any natural elements. Unable to communicate through words and ill-equipped to defend themselves against humans, animals have been consistently exploited and used for human ends, our ethical duties to them tossed into the shadowy backgrounds.
Many other industries such as the fashion industry and factory farming contribute to the exploitation of animals. Fashion industries strip them of their fur, their skin (leather), feathers, wool, and horns. Factory farming, similar to lab procedures, leave animals without their natural habitat by being in metal cages and suffer from lack of proper care. Cosmetics industries also heavily contribute to the abuse of animals as many women personalize their everyday looks. As the NEAVS describes, animals are subject to “testing new drugs to infecting with diseases, poisoning for toxicity testing, burning skin, causing brain damage, implanting electrodes into the brain, maiming, blinding, and other painful and invasive
procedures.” Though there are a multitude of issues that need to be solved on the human front, the unique problems animals have had to endure for centuries justify taking action right now. Only then can we hope to finally correct our past and present wrongs. We are perfectly equipped to lead the change — countless rights movements in the past have taught us how to promote change, advocate equality and urge activism for a movement. All that’s left is for us to finally take a stand and decide to make a tangible difference. Instead of capitalizing on the differences between animals and ourselves, we should utilize opportunities like these to celebrate our similarities. If we identify ourselves only through the differences among us, we lead ourselves down a path that advocates different treatment based on arbitrary differences, justifications that were frequently used to promote racial segregation and human-rights violations.
Jeremy Rifkin in the article " A Change of Heart about Animals" argues on the fact that as incredible as it sounds, many of our fellow creatures as like us in so many ways. For example, in a movie named Paulie a young girl that suffers autism gets attached to a parrot. The girl struggles to talk but she just can't. Time passes by and then the girl starts talking because the parrot helped her. An incident happened so the little girl's parents decide to let the parrot go. The parrot ends up in an animal testing lab but somehow he managed to escape. The parrot begins to miss his owner because he formed a bond with a human being. Obviously, this proves Rifkin is right when he states that animals experience feelings like human beings.
Rifkin’s audience is extremely clear. He is reaching for all anti-activist and his unintended audience would be like-minded animal activists. Rifkin makes a very desperate attempt to persuade people of animal empathy in this article. He proves he is reaching
In the article you published called “A Change of Heart about Animals,” Jeremy Rifkin states “Many of our fellow creatures are more like us than we had ever imagined.”. I agree and believe society should be more involved into the way we do things that involves animals. We need to be more aware about the animals and that they have feelings and emotions too and we should not be taking advantage of that. Rifkin stated a lot of good points and arguments. I honestly do not agree we should end all animals deaths, but I do believe there should be an awareness against animal cruelty.
...nimal rights yet I do question myself where to draw the line. I do not condone violence or harm against animals, yet I shudder at the thought of a mice plague and feel saddened by the extinction of our native animals by ‘feral’ or pest species. Is it right to kill one species to save another? I am appalled by the idea of ‘circus’ animals yet I will attend the horse races every summer for my entertainment. I think Tom Regan’s argument and reasoning for animal rights was extremely effective at making whoever is reading the essay question his or her own moral standards. Reading the essay made me delve into my own beliefs, morals and values which I think is incredibly important. To form new attitudes as a society it is important we start questioning how we view the lives of others, do we see animals as a resource to be exploited or as equals with rights just like we do?
In many parts of the world, animals are being used in laboratories are still suffering and dying to test cosmetics. In
Regan, Tom. “The Case for Animal Rights.” In Defense of Animals. Ed. Peter Singer. New York:
Animals are used today for many sources of protection, food, clothing, transportation, sports, entertainment, and labor, but millions of these animals die each year from abuse. “Most of the reasons that people give for denying animals rights are: animals do not have souls, god gave humans dominion over the animals, humans are intellectually superior to animals, humans are intellectually superior to animals, animals do not reason, think, or feel pain like humans do, animals are a natural resource to used as humans see fit, and animals kill each other” (Evans). It all started in the nineteenth century, when people began abusing animals by beating them, feeding them poorly, providing them with no shelter or poor shelter, left to die if they were sick or old, or by cruel sports. Most of the organized efforts to improve human treatment of animals all started in England. Around the 1800s, there was signs of rising concern for animal welfare in the United States.
As an advocate of animal rights, Tom Regan presents us with the idea that animals deserve to be treated with equal respect to humans. Commonly, we view our household pets and select exotic animals in different regard as oppose to the animals we perceive as merely a food source which, is a notion that animal rights activists
Animals can be a man's best friend; however, they can also be ones worst enemy after passing certain boundaries. Peter Singer who wrote Animal Liberation gave valid points in my opinion because animals do have a right to live and we should give them their space. Humans take everything for granted and never seem to learn until it too late. Today slaughterhouses are abusing animals in disturbing ways which has to change. I will agree with Singers concepts on animals because they have a right to live a peaceful life like humans; they have a life ahead of them once they are born. Singer argues that animals should have their interests considered throughout their lives. Singer wants to eliminate speciesism from our thoughts which is, a human discriminatory belief that all other animals are not as good as them therefore they do not have rights and we could do what we want to them. We should not be the only types of "animals" in this earth who has a set of rights we should abide.
The Cruelty of Cosmetic Testing on Animals Each year, thousands of animals are brutally tortured in laboratories, in the name of cosmetic research. A movement to ban animal testing for cosmetic purposes has been gaining popularity, with many companies hopping on the bandwagon against this research. New alternatives have been developed to eliminate the need to test on animals. This is only a small beginning of what is necessary to end these immoral acts. Animal testing in cosmetics is useless and cruel, and can be accomplished by other methods of research to end the suffering of animals.
"The Case For Animal Rights" written by Tom Regan, promotes the equal treatment of humans and non-humans. I agree with Regan's view, as he suggests that humans and animals alike, share the experience of life, and thus share equal, inherent value.
Tom Regan, “The Case for Animal Rights,” in In Defense of Animals, ed. Peter Singer (Oxford:
A. A. “The Case Against Animal Rights.” Animal Rights Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. Janelle Rohr. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1989.
Simple household items such as lotions, shampoos and cosmetics aren’t very expensive and are within reach for the public, yet the public is not knowledgeable of the fact that the products that they use everyday are put through a series of tests which involve the use of harmless animals. Several large commercial companies do not make products for animals; they decide that using these harmless creatures for the testing of their products, could be cause to be harmful to animals still go forward with these types of procedures on an everyday basis. Although these animals are unable to defend themselves or signs of any form of consent for the near death procedures, these companies find this as a cheap solution for testing their products before placing them on the market. There are many other alternatives to testing animals such as embryonic stem cell research. Animal experimentation is wrong and it can be avoided but companies which are greedy for money chose not to.
Factory farms have portrayed cruelty to animals in a way that is horrific; unfortunately the public often does not see what really goes on inside these “farms.” In order to understand the conditions present in these factory farms, it must first be examined what the animals in these factory farms are eating. Some of the ingredients commonly used in feeding the animals inside factory farms include the following: animal byproducts, plastic, drugs and chemicals, excessive grains, and meat from members of the same species. (Adams, 2007) These animals are tortured and used for purely slaughter in order to be fed on. Typically large numbers of animals are kept in closed and tight confinements, having only little room to move around, if even that. These confinements can lead to suffocation and death and is not rare. Evidence fr...