...Word Count: 1218 Animals Have Feelings, Too Each year, more than 100 million animals, including mice, rats, frogs, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, fish, and birds are killed in the United States alone for biology lessons, medical training, curiosity-driven experimentation, and chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics testing (Peta). Before these innocent animals are killed, some are forced to inhale deadly chemicals, others are held down for hours while “scientists” burn their skin off or drill into their skull. Not only are these tests cruel, they are often inefficient and unpredictable. While many of these experiments often prove successful in animals like mice, they frequently do not work on humans. Testing on animals should be illegal because it is cruel to the animal and the studies done can cure an animal but not cure humans. Too many animals die each year after living an awful life as a test subject. Around one million animals, excluding rats, mice, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and agricultural animals used in agricultural experiments, are used in experiments every year in just the United Sates. Another one hundred million mice and rats are tested on, as well. In Canada, 3.2 million animals are used in experiments. In addition, around 80,000 animals are subjected to “severe pain near, at, or above the pain tolerance threshold of unanesthetized conscious animals” (Peta). It is heartbreaking to think about the pain that these animals endure every day....
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...argument that animals should be given equal consideration to humans, however not everyone agreed to the same extent. One of the views expressed was that while humans care for other animals, for humans as a society to advance, they must exploit other species along the lines of “hunt or be hunted” and “survival of the fittest.” In this way we are speciests. Other group members agreed more strongly with Singer, saying that growing up in a time where animal rights activists began their movement, it isn’t unusual for to believe that animals deserve better rights. If you agree with me, under Kolberg’s stages of moral development, many of us developed this in the first conventional level. Society was changing and becoming more conscious about animals rights and I followed thinking it was the right thing to do because so many people were involved saying it was the right thing to do. Singer verifies this thinking through his many examples like questioning what’s the difference between a mentally disabled person and a dog are concrete supportive arguments to the moral thinking that I have. In Singer’s essay, he uses the word sentience as reasoning to why animals are entitled to equal rights. By using sentience he is referring to all those who may feel suffering and enjoyment. Singer says that being able to experience pain and suffering means that one has an interest that must be taken into consideration for fairness in moral rights. He uses a...
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...Animal Rights The health care professional whom would be the best person to determine what is to be “humane care” would probably be a veterinarian. A veterinarian is the most qualified to give care of an animal and would be best suited to determine humane care. I think a laboratory technician who does research on the animal has to be responsible in researching and such but should follow a strict set of guidelines. I do not support the use of animals for research. I do not think that is it humane to keep an animal locked up for testing and such. If you want to research the animal why not let it be free and research it in its natural habitat. I understand the testing for diseases and things of that sort to help maintain the animals health but I don’t approve of it. I am probably more biased towards this because I hate seeing any animal suffer, even a stray dog for that matter. I have a dog now and would never allow someone to test him unless it was a veterinarian. When viewing the NIH guidelines for animal research, I came across these 3 basic guidelines: Reduction: Reduction in the numbers of animals used to obtain information of a certain amount and precision. Refinement: Decrease in the incidence or severity of pain and distress in those animals that are used. Replacement: Use of other materials, such as cell lines or eggs, or substitution of a lower species, which might be less sensitive to pain and distress, for a higher species. I do believe that these guidelines are...
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...A debate about animal rights has been an ongoing problem around the world for generations. For the first time, according to Singer (2003), the Australian philosopher Peter Singer proposed the assertion that animals have ‘rights’ in the 1970s. Ever since then, this claim has been the topic of many emotional and ardent discussions. There are many areas in which the issue of animal right’s is an acute topic. For example, there are moral aspects of keeping animals in zoos, eating them, using for testing etc.? I tend to think that animals should not have rights because they are not humans, and they are not able to fight for those rights. I agree with the point of view of Linker (2014) that people should treat animals respectably. However, it should be because they are not like humans rather than because they are similar to human beings. Human dignity is associated with some the moral qualities that are often difficult to explain, and certainly cannot be seen in the behavior of animals. Obviously, people have to take care of animals and not hurt them because they are living beings also experiencing emotions. However, this cannot be the basis for granting them rights equivalent to the human. People are beings endowed with sympathies and emotions, and any normal society cannot be indifferent to the suffering of the animals. A cruel treatment of pets, like dogs and cats, will induce revulsion even from people who had never had pets and are not planning to. However, Schultz (2013)...
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...Animal Rights Baxter Pittman DeVry University Animal Rights Animals had played an important role in human society. Back in ancient time, people had hunted animals for food, their skins and bones were used for clothing, shelter and tools. Then today, people such as farmers, pet owners, animal breeders, zoo keepers, and research scientists have used animals in a different way. This relates to the common good because humans shouldn’t use animals for their own personal or selfish interests. This also relates to individual rights because animals deserve to be treated with respect, like humans beings do. To make this happen we must allow farm animals to have their own rights where they are free from danger and cruelty from human beings. We need to be fair and set laws like the ASPCA works to rescue animals from abuse, humane laws and share resources with shelters nationwide that would help animals rather than hurt them. Animal rights is an issue dealing with the moral rights of animals due to animal testing, the use of animals for sports and entertainment, animals as food and products, and animal abuse. Animal experimentation is used to improve human health by using animals in biomedical and veterinary research. I believe that the reasons why people are experimenting on animals are to find out more about the animals themselves, and to test substances and procedures to see if they are harmful. Animals were merely a part of our food chain at the start of time, and then we needed...
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...world without animals? A world where we have destroyed all nature and killed our ecosystems. A world where all we see is flat ground and buildings. Its desolate and unhappy. Most people believe that animals are items, that they have no meaning to us. So we slaughter them, and kill them like they are worthless, but if you think harder, are they really meaningless to us? Animals are creatures just like us. They show affection, they have fears, and they breath. Isn’t that what we do? Like humans animals have rights to live peacefully, and not become rugs or coats. When coming into a neighbors house when I was younger, I was appalled when I saw the tiger rug, the moose head on the wall, and the grizzly bear that stood right behind the TV with glassy eyes, and an opened mouth. Those animals had lives, they had children, but somehow people just came out and murdered them, like they had no feelings, and they felt to pain. Yet, looking into that bear’s eyes that day I saw the pain, with its mouth opened wide bearing its gleaming teeth, trying to defend itself. What I realized about the neighbor boy was, he didn’t care about animals. He acted like they were his and his dad’s to kill. He didn’t think that they could really have a heart, or a mind. That is what most humans succeed to miss, that animals aren’t so different after all. Ever since the dawn of humans animals have been harmed and treated unfairly. Most countries have laws that prevent animal fighting and...
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...Animal Rights Priscilla Peterman University of Phoenix Com/156 Instructor James Christianson This research paper is going to discuss a major concern with the issue of animal rights and how people view this critical issue. Animals deserve rights, and these rights should annihilate the many problems with animal abuse, abandonment, and animal experimentation. Animals deserve the same rights as humans. Animals, subsequently dating back to the days of Ancient Greece, have always held a place in the hearts of humans. And for so long as this animal human relation existed, so did the realism of taking care of the animals, whether it be in the form of love, care and equal rights. The idea that we are all born with essential rights, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, is important to our society, mainly to the ideas stated in the United States Constitution. Though, humanities inconsiderately demean this principle by denying that animals share these rights. Animals are just as titled to the rights of living, avoiding pain, and pursuing happiness as humans are. Yet still we exploit and abuse them cruelly, most often without a second thought. The use of animals in biomedical research, segmentation, testing and education, deprives animals of their natural rights and is a great injustice. We must believe that this is completely intolerable, and we should find more humane as well as...
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...Animal Rights in Medical Research As the declaration of human right states that all human beings are free and equal in dignity and rights. The issue of whether or not to grant animal rights such as those that humans have is greatly disputed over years, but without success. Animal right is an extremely complicated issue that involves the question of animal intellect, animal rights groups, and the pros and cons of granting animals their rights. I have worked with and observed chimpanzees in early 2000 in a research lab in Alamogordo, NM as an animal caretaker and seen how these primates communicate with each other. I feel this subject is very important and I will be sharing my reflections, thoughts and experiences in this paper. Researchers all over the world, who have studied primates argue that these animals hold the capacity to communicate. The researchers go on to describe that a communication barrier is all that separates humans from animals. Chimpanzees are more superior on using their hand and feet than humans. I observed them using their hand to peel bananas, use hands and feet to swing, open doors and even had a water faucet sticking out of the wall with a button that they pressed to drink water. I also got a chance to see a chimp using sign language. This particular chimp in his early life was on TV and commercials, can walk upright, and was harmless. His owner decided to part ways due to the chimp’s age and turned him over to the research facility. They can...
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...Animal Rights Since the beginning of living, the interaction between man and animals have been something unavoidable. The encounter in the wild, the hunter and the hunted, and the survival of the strongest are the rules of the jungle an it is because of this relation that we have with the animals that people have been study them. The philosopher Pythagoras was one of the first person who talked about animal, describing their soul were in the same category as the humans begins. Also, in the Bible is told that the humans are in a superior level when they justified that a bled animal can be eaten. Rene Descartes wrote in his meditations that animals do not have soul; therefore, they are not able to feel and their treatment can not be consider as a moral issue. Knowing that there is a lot of controversy about the animal rights, is inevitable to ask what are the advantages and disadvantages about giving them rights? The first and maybe the most important factor that we need to discuss firstly is the ability that both, humans and animals, have to think and feel. On one hand, human beings are complex evolved creatures who are accorded rights on the basis that they are able to think and to feel pain; additionally, any other animals are also able to think (to some extent) and are certainly able to feel pain. Therefore non-human animals should also be accorded rights, like a free and healthy life. However, on the other hand, human beings are infinitely more complex than any other...
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...Essay on Animal Rights Animals are great little creatures. They give pleasure on many different levels. They are they for beauty, comfort, and love. Animals are creatures of the world that are here for those reasons. We as humans were creatures as animals long ago, but we’ve evolved. Most animals have evolved too, but that does not give them the same right as a human being. I support Machan’s views on animal rights and livelihood. Animals should not be granted with the same right as we are, as humans. Animals are not even close to being in the same league as humans. Yes animals can feel pain and emotion, but that does not give them rights to freedom that humans have. I think that the treatment of animals should be learned at a young age. Growing up on a farm, I learned how to treat animals. There is a certain amount of respect that everyone should give to animals. You shouldn’t really be cruel to them. What is the purpose of making a living thing suffer? There is no purpose and its just wrong. Being on a farm you know the boundaries when it comes to animals and yourself. I had pets and then I had animals. Cats and dogs are usually the favorites when it comes to having pets. They give you pleasure. Chickens and ducks were there for the sole purpose to be eaten, sold, or for eggs. When on a farm, you grow attached to certain animals more easily than others. I would never get attached to cows, because I knew that they wouldn’t be around very long. We would process them...
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...All human beings have a moral obligation to animals. Do animals have rights? This is a the question that many in our society disagrees on. It is my opinion that humans have an ethical and moral obligation to treat animals in a humane way. The argument for animal rights or adding them to a worldwide blacklist would mean: We should not exploit animals no matter what the cost to humanity would be, even if it’s done in a humane way. Breeding and raising animals to slaughter houses for food is in-humane. Unfortunately since life began it’s always been the survival of the fittest. But, don’t animals such as farm animals deserve respect and be to able to have some rights? In today’s society because of our economic system, farmers will cut corners on many things to be more efficient, but by cutting costs other issues have risen; such as meat with the e-coli bacteria because of antibiotic resistance to killing germs. There’s an epidemic of DNA altered GMO produced foods from large farming corporations called CAFO, the animals mainly are grain-fed and raised in poor, inadequate overcrowded feedlots, to produce mass amounts of food partially since the start of NAFTA in 1994. Over the years many people wanted to boycott these types of farming practices and some have gone as far to sue, but it is hard to put these large farming corporations out of business because of the financial backing they receive. Many times the CAFO’s will even open a libel counter suit against them that...
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...Animal Rights Animal Rights Johana Diaz Professor Irene Silas April 2011 Animal Rights Animal Rights Like humans, animals feel emotions such as pain, anxiety, and affection then if humans have rights, animals should also have rights. It is true that animals are different from people but it doesn't mean that they are inferior to them. Animals are abused and killed for a variety of socially acceptable purposes: 6 billion are slaughtered as foods, 200 million are murdered by sport hunters, 50 million die in laboratories and 25 million are murdered for their fur. Numbers never lie, cruelty towards animals is a fact. It is important to let humanity know why animals should have rights. Informing on the physical and psychological abuse that they suffer through violence, research of educational and scientific purposes and for the entertainment of people. Animal Rights, also known as Animal Liberation, is the the idea that the most basic interests in animals should be allowed the same amount of attention as basic interests in human beings (Wise, 2007). Peter Singer, a philosopher with a sensible focus on suffering in animals, incites people to extend their moral care boundaries to include animals. He says that animals shouldn't be discriminate against because they are not part of the human species (Yount, 2008).I agree completely with that just because animals don't have the same rationality as human...
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...Animal Rights This argument about animal needing rights has been going on since the twentieth century. Until this day animals still do not receive he rights they deserve. Not all animals deserve to be locked up in a cage at a zoo or in a scientist’s laboratory. How we treat animals has shown an uncivilized community. Prejudice has a way of denying that animal rights have no expectations to the fact that they should be given the rights as we have for ourselves. Doesn’t matter what the case may be, prejudice is morally unacceptable, because think about it, you will eat a pig or cow but it’s in human to eat a dog. [pic] Eating animals isn’t bad but it’s on the wrong side. The way factories torture the cows, pigs, and chickens is the wrong way that we should be eating them. This book that I read Eat Like You Care: An Examination of the Morality of Eating Animals By Gary L. Francione and Anna Charlton, explains that they agree that “unnecessary” suffering and death on animals are ridiculous. The book explains that there will be no different on how we make our meat. Another book by Gary L. Francione, Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog? This book explains that an animal should have rights to live without suffering, just how humans live without suffering. In the Los Angeles Times, there was an article Animal rights, writ too large? This article explains that you can be against animal abuse and animals having rights. But don’t be an hypocrite...
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...Ryanesha Curley Animal Rights Do you believe that animals deserve rights? They may not talk or reason, but they do have rights. Animals surely deserve to live their lives free from suffering and exploitation. All animals suffer in the same way and to the same degree that humans do. They can feel anger, loneliness, depression, happiness, and love. Animals should have rights because; they have feelings, should be treated equally, and shouldn’t be used as objects. “If you step on your dogs paw, he yelps because it hurts. Animals experience pain…”-Goodman Animals don’t have voices to express the way they feel during certain situations so humans think that they are okay with the harm they do with them. Perhaps humans believe that since we are on the top of the food chain that we don’t know that we selfishly inflict animals, by our own survival. Animal cruelty goes unnoticed each and every day, because it doesn’t occur to us that they are living breathing creatures. Further more animals that can’t contain the pain and misery are left to suffer and die. At present, on an average day in the United States, 130,000 cattle, 7,000 calves, 360,000 pigs, and 24 million chickens are killed(Williams 65). An average day! And these figures exclude the hoards of rats, mice, dogs, cats, and primates that are brutally tortured until death in research labs across the country. Surely, no form of genocide undertaken in human history can match these numbers. We believe, at least individually, that...
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...Animal Rights Many animals are lucky, they have a family where they get love, shelter and food but some animals aren’t so lucky; these animals are neglected, beaten, or ignored. Some people do not give animals respect; they are just an object that can be replaced at any time. It is obvious by the way animals are exploited that their rights are almost nonexistent. This exploitation includes animals that are used for entertainment, sport, breeding, and experiments. Animal activist are trying to get animals’ rights and observed and enforced by all. Humans use animals in many different ways besides as pets. Estee Lauder, Avon and Mary Kay have resumed animal testing on cosmetics to sell in China — even as the companies continue to claim in the United States that their products are cruelty-free (Sullivan). Laboratories use animals to test makeup, and for medical research; sometimes the animals are not given any anesthesia or pain medicine. The animals are caged or held in rooms that are so crowded that they cannot even move (Guillermo). Because they are going to be used for experiments or research often they are not given enough food and water. They may never be allowed outside of the cage again (Guillermo). Laboratories buy these animals from pounds such as the Pound Seizure program. This program allows animal shelters to sell animals to labs for experimenting or research; there are five states that have this program. These shelters that have too many animals are allowed to...
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