Should Animals Have Basic Human Rights Essay

In the articles of Jeremy Rifkin, Victoria Braithwaite, and Ed Yong, there's a deep research and debate whether animals should be given the right to have human rights or not. All authors include their perspective on the issue and provide scientific evidence. However, I believe that there should be a separation of rights between animals and humans because there is no biological basis for drawing the line. Giving the right to apes, what factors exclude other mammals like dogs, cats, and birds.

In the Constitution of the United States of America there are a set of rights for citizens called the bill of rights but should animals be able to have their own bill of rights? The Bill of Rights are rights given to citizens of the United states of America. Animal Bill of Rights are rights for animals who can not speak for themselves. Only some animals should be given some rights.

Animal rights are violated the moment they are used for research. This is because they never have given any option or chances to choose whether to participate in any experiment. Their decisions are made for them since they cannot vocalize their own preferences and choice. Animals are normally subjected to experimentation that are often painful and could cause permanent damage or death. It is true that animals cannot talk nor make decision. Yet, people still can think rationally that none of these god’s creature willingly or voluntarily sacrifice themselves for the advancement of human welfare and new technology. Humans do not have the right to use animals for their own ends because animals are also a creation of god which makes them equally entitled to the same rights as humans. According to Bentham (2015), the questions that bothers when deciding on animal are not ‘Can they reason?’ nor ‘Can they talk?’ but ‘Can they suffer?’ Animals have the same ability to suffer as human do. The absent of cognitive ability, language, or moral judgement cannot become the reasons why they should be discriminated (Singer, 2009). Some says that animals cannot respect our rights, therefore we should not grant rights to them. This makes a typical example of equality and equity cases as it is well known that animals do not have the same cognitive ability as human do, yet we expect them to behave like human. For example, children also do not

Animals having rights will change medical research, for example, If we do not have animals to experiment on to cure cancer, positive medicine for illness or disease then the death rate will go up. Testable

Mistreating animals as if one does not care for them is the same as mistreating humans. By mistreating poor doubtless animals it affects them and can sometimes lead into suffering stress. If humans are able to protect each other from harm, then why cannot animals do the same thing by having rights? This question is usefully asked for those who try to protect the rights of animals. In the article Of Primates and Personhood the author Ed Yong, a science journalist, contends, “I feel we should extend rights to a wide range of nonhuman animals… ‘all creatures that can feel pain should have a basic moral status’” (5). Personally I agree with his saying, if animals are allowed to have a basic moral status, then chances are that less harm towards the animals will be

The protests that are arguing for animals to have basic human rights are not interfering with the animal testing, but with the simple basic human rights of being able to get to one place to another. Think about it: have you ever been in a situation where you are stuck behind someone going slowly and there are other people surrounding you, making it impossible to get around that one slow person? During this entire time, you can see the sweet freedom of the open road right in front of him or her. To create a clear path so you can move at your own pace, you think about

Primates should not be entitled to basic civil rights due to the advantages that society reaps from animal testing. “Rights” and the understanding of imposed actions are a concept that can only be grasped by the human mind. Humans are the only species that can compose themselves with cogent and sensible thinking.. Giving basic human-rights to primates, including life, protection, freedom from torture, slavery, and freedom of movement, etc. is a ridiculous idea because they are unable to reciprocate these rights onto others, due of their lack in rational thought. We, as a society, are unable to teach primates to go against their natural instincts, you cannot, for example, teach an animal not to hunt for survival or kill for protection. Furthermore, the advantages gained from captivity of primates, for research and educational purposes, are extensive. If we were to give primates basic human rights, we would have to release them from confinement under all circumstance, including zoos, sanctuaries, and laboratories. Animal testing and research has lead to many great discoveries, including treatments for AIDs and cancer, it is a huge factor of how we got to be as advanced of a society as we are today. It is also crucial in regards to transplant surgery, cardiac surgery, and joint replacements- as well as vaccinations. Primates are very similar to humans, they are able to display basic emotions (i.e. sadness, joy, anger) and share much of the same DNA (i.e. Great Apes are made up of 97% of matching genes.) This makes them excellent candidates in researching products made for humans, including medicine and cosmetics. An animal’s

Animals should have the right to be free from unnecessary suffering and experimentation because they are innocent creatures. An argument for opposing the Animal Bill of Rights is that research will be slowed or stopped completely, resulting in the death of humans that could have been saved. The Animal Bill of Rights is not meant to stop or prevent experimentation on animals; it is meant to limit the extraneous suffering and torment animals go through in the name of development. Animals are innocent- it cannot defend itself against malevolent human intentions. The Animal Bill of Rights is meant to prevent the exploitation of animals and refute the justification that experimentation makes animal cruelty moral. Humans are ones who exploited animals, so humans have an obligation to free them from the unnecessary pain caused by exploiting them. Because of their lack of ability to defend themselves against human evil, the Animal Bill of Rights grants animals to be protected and

Throughout thousands of years, animal testing has been proven to be beneficial for the human race. While it has done a wonderful job for us, it has only injured, killed and put an enormous amount of pain on animals. The exact number of animals used in research yearly is unknown, due to official government statistics not including mice, rats, birds, fish, or other animals used for testing: some estimates put the total number to be 26 million. The use of animals for scientific research is cruel and inhumane, while both humans and animals share similar traits, they are both made up of completely different genes making them poor test subjects to begin with and may mislead or cause side effects for both parties.

The article, “Of Primates and Personhood: Will According Rights and “Dignity” to Nonhuman Organisms Halt Research?” by Ed Yong is trying to convince the reader to see a different side to primates. The Great Ape Project set legal rights for chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, and orangutan. United Kingdom and New Zealand protect great apes from experimentation. For the Great Ape Project they are basically setting laws and higher standards for primates to me experimented on or held captive. Not everyone agrees with the GAP’s but some people do have special obligations for the great apes. Great apes are our closest relatives. Former animal researcher Roscoe Barlett researches about primates and wants to extend the rights for the animals. Kevin Martin,

Michael Pollan brings to our attention the arguments that relate to the treatment of animals. He begins his essay with examples talking about how pigs are seen as nothing more than meat and how dogs get their own birthday and Christmas presents. Here he questions how certain animals receive different attitudes from us and makes us think about how each animal has a different fate. Pollan wants us to question ourselves and to look at animals from another perspective and see if they deserve more equality or if we need to have a different attitude towards them all together. These arguments are very effective in that they make us question of whether or not our attitude towards certain animals are different because of how they are used or in our eyes some are just more important than others. The author highlighted another paradox when it came to analyzing human attitude towards eating

How animals are treated can also affect daily human life. Animal rights are rights given to animals to be free from exploitation, cruelty, neglect, and abuse and enumerates further rights for laboratory animals, farm animals, companion animals, and wildlife. Some animals should have a Bill of Rights. This law does go against centuries of human culture. This law would increase the cost of food. This law would hinder medical research.

I think that when people hear about primates being entitled to human rights they think of the most ridiculous scenarios where Apes have the right to a jury in a court of law. But really, Apes having rights like people do just means that humans are going to own up to their responsibilities. [Philosopher Lori Gruen 2014, “Should Animals Have Rights?”] Because, if humans didn’t exist then there wouldn’t be any environmental problems, all species would live perfectly in a non polluted earth free to live their lives the way nature intended. Giving Apes rights would force humans who otherwise don’t care about the environment or the species in it, punishment for breaking the freedoms that Apes should have. [Barbara King, 2014 “Humans Chimps, And Why We Need Personhood for

In human history, a number of oppressed groups have campaigned for equality, demanding for an expansion on the moral view of life, and to be treated fairly in the eye of consideration.This means that when the matter concerns this group, their voices are heard, and treated with value, and consideration. Where this equality is not determined by an assembly of facts like that group’s collective intelligence level, the colour of their skin, or the physical strength of their bodies.This is what Peter Singer brings up in his essay: “All Animals are Equal”, that non-human animals should have equal consideration with humans when matters concern them. Going into a specific set of non-human animals known as primates, I argue that primates should have some of the fundamental rights and equal consideration that are given to humans.With humans evolving from primates, there is no logical reason why we see ourselves as a higher being than our pre evolved selves. Primates should have legal representation when it comes to events that are either caused by them, or could affect them. Primates, like humans, have a capacity to suffer, because of this they should live in a world where they do not have to feel unnecessary pain.

The use of apes in experimentation should occur only if: no other alternative models exist, if it is minimally invasive, or if the research would be of overall net-benefit to the species of apes. Apes are used because of their genetic similarities, where chimps share 98.4% of their DNA with us, and gorillas share 97.7%; because of this similarity, chimps can be presented as models for humans. However, chimps not only have many genetic similarities, they have also been observed to have of characteristics in common with humans, including feeling emotions, reasoning, and using language; this has lead to the consideration by groups, such as the Great Ape Project, that apes should be treated, legally as humans.