Do animals have rights? Should they have more?

In past generations, equal rights were not afforded to all people equally. Native Americans were deemed unworthy to live on the land of their ancestors. African Americans have been treated as the equivalent of farm equipment. Women have been the subordinate of their male counterparts, viewed as less capable in every way. To an extent, these groups were treated as we would treat an animal. What is the next logical step in our social evolution? Could it be that animals deserve rights equal to that of humans? We take their land, and their homes, as our own population spreads. Do we deserve it more? We buy them and sell them. We keep them in miserable conditions on crowded and unsanitary farms. At a certain age we line them up for slaughter. Is this acceptable? We force them to entertain us by making them race or fight. We imprison and enslave them in a zoo, circus, or even our homes. Is that fair? What gives humans the right?

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Our responses:

Allison: Animals should have just as many rights as humans do. This planet was made for animals, but humans just took it over and developed all the land. Think about how pissed animals should be at us. We take their homes and kill their families just so our greedy butts can eat meat! There are so many more options for food but people decide to murder instead. What kind of jerks are we?!


Castor: We take animals away from their homes to put them in a cage
for our amusement. Its wrong to do that to them because you would not want someone to do that to you. There is a reason that they are somewhere else than we are. Animals should be left alone in the places that they have been for years because if we were meant to be living together they would already be here.


Josh: I believe in the survival of the fittest. We need to eat
animals because they are the most reliable source of food we have. Crops take more space, and do not adapt to new environments the way livestock do. Conditions on farms or in slaughterhouses may not be ideal, but the animals we eat would have a much more painful and gruesome death if they were eaten by a natural predator in the wild. Even a bullet from a hunter is a better way to go than to be ripped to shreds by something higher up the food chain. My family hunts deer in Wisconsin both for the food and to keep their population in control. They eat crops meant for people and run in front of cars, they are a menace.

As far as using animals for entertainment or testing, I believe they already have rights. Those things are regulated and there are people that make sure things don't go too far. I am no expert but I would bet the United States treats its animals better than most of the world. If we had no testing here they would do it somewhere else where people have other things to worry about than a few monkeys or rats. Living in a democratic country means we have to listen to people on both sides of every issue, even the extreme sides of the argument, and meet somewhere in the middle. Our country does as good a job of that as anyone could ask for, including the issue of animal rights.