Argument Paper On Animal Rights

If you had the choice to live or die which would you choose? If you had the alternative to live in a cage or in a house which would you select? If you had the option to have experiments that caused you pain preformed on you would you? The truth is that most of use would rather live, reside in a house and would not be a part of an experiment that caused us pain. However, most people accept the elements of the above conditions for non-human animals. Non-human animals should not be a part of destruction, pain, incarceration and underprivileged conditions that are caused by humans.

Animal right's is a movement of individuals that support giving non-human animals life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. "People who support animal rights believe that animals are not ours to use for food, clothing, entertainment, experimentation, or any other purpose" (PETA, FAQ) This movement is different form animal welfare which is what most individuals are aware of "Animal welfare theories accept that animals have interests but allow those interests to be traded away as long as the human benefits are thought to justify the sacrifice, while animal rights theories say that animals, like humans, have interests that cannot be sacrificed or traded away to benefit others." (PETA, FAQ)

The controversial process of how animals are treated has existed for many generations, up to now we have been unsuccessful in reaching an understanding. Even in religion people have different views "Jainism, which enjoins ahimsa ("noninjury") [sic] toward all living things, and Buddhism, which forbids the needless killing of animals [...].traditional Judaism and Christianity taught that animals were created by God for human use,." (Encyclopedia Britannica) There are many different opinions some say that "Animals [...] lack this capacity for free moral judgment. They are not beings of a kind capable of exercising or responding to moral claims. Animals therefore have no rights, and they can have none."( Cohen, Carl ) others like the organization of Animals Deserve Absolute Protection Today and Tomorrow (ADAPTT) "believes that all animals have an inherent right to be free and live completely unfettered by human dominance." organizations like the ADAPTT want non-human animals to be protected by laws that would grant the animal the "rights to be free"(ADAPTT)

One of the biggest of organization for animal rights is PETA People for the Ethical Treatment of animals. The organization educates many people in animal rights and has helped many animals. The organization has also been beleaguered because of the extreme methods used to save animals and it is constantly accused. "the group spends huge sums on programs equating people who eat chicken with Nazis, scaring young children away from drinking milk, recruiting children into the radical animal rights lifestyle, and intimidating businessmen and their families in their own neighborhoods.(Chris Field, Human Events.) The patter continues humans cannot reach an agreement on animal rights.

To understand why animals need rights you need to know the facts. A video in the web site www.peta.org demonstrates life of chickens in a farm raised for a fast food company the video was an outrage. The "System of modern animal farming (is) designed to yield the most meat, milk, and eggs in the least amount of time and space possible." (Factory Farming) It's one thing when you read about the environment animals live in and another thing is watching it. It sad because most people are unaware of the pain the animals endure just for our culinary tastes. "Chickens spend their lives crowded into small cages, often so tightly that they cannot turn around; the cages are stacked in high batteries, and the length of "day" and "night" are artificially controlled to maximize egg laying." (Factory Farming) These types of conditions create unhealthy environments to the animals people eat "Ammonia and other gases also build up, creating an extremely unhealthy and stressful environment for these sensitive birds." (The Chicken Factory)

The worst part of all this is that it is not just chickens that endure this treatment " '... 400- to 500-pound mammals trapped without relief inside iron crates seven feet long and 22 inches wide. They chew maniacally on bars and chains, as foraging animals will do when denied straw ... The pigs know the feel only of concrete and metal. They lie covered in their own urine and excrement, with broken legs from trying to escape or just to turn ..." (George, F Will). The type of treatment cause the animals stress and pain. "Stress is a natural and often-occurring state in life for both humans and animals." (Pekow, Cynthia, DVM, Diplomate ACLAM). If stress is natural and it occurs to animals and humans then we know what stress feels like.

Most of the animals in farms die so people could enjoy a tasty meal, a nice pair of leather shoes or for cosmetics. "People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing the practice. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest of times." (Singer, B. Isaac) It is not right I as a human would not want to endure the life of an animal under these conditions. "[...] the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men." (Da Vinci, Leonardo, quotes)

The second and probably the most controversial topic is animal testing and its environment. "Laboratory animals most commonly are used in three main areas: biomedical research, product safety testing, and education."(Altweb, FAQs) During the research most of the animals live in laboratories cages. The cages the non-human animals live in are similar to a jail. The type of research that animals endure varies for example a test is preformed on animas to determine how it would affect humans. "Acute-toxicity tests evaluate the risk of short-term exposure through normal use, accidental contact with the eyes or skin, and accidental ingestion. Chronic-toxicity tests assess the effects of long-term exposure--often at low levels--to certain substances."(Altweb, FAQs)

The justification is to achieve extraordinary medicine or just simply because a new fragrance or lipstick needs to be approved for humans. For example "Scientists say monkeys are ideal for the research because their brains are similar to human brains and are affected by many of the same diseases." (Current Events) If monkeys are so similar to us why do we cause them pain? It makes the monkey no more different that a disable person or a child. If a human gets injured and