Animal Rights 3
"But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time that they had been born to enjoy."(Plutarch). Each year, over five billion animals are consumed by Americans, yet still most people sit and eat their hamburgers without even thinking where they come from. Fact is, that most people don't want to know the truth about animal consumption because they are afraid to realize that their barbaric practice of meat eating might be morally wrong, and nobody likes to be wrong. To protect the people from being wrong, the truth is hidden from them, by the meat industry, dairy industry, and all other corporations that profit from the torment and agony of others. The truth is, that animals are sentient beings, with the ability to experience pain, suffering, and pleasure; and clearly, therefore, must not be tortured, abused, or murdered for human benefit. The opposition of the Animal Rights Movement believes that animals are inferior to man and therefore can justifiably be used for human pleasure/benefit. For example, Edwin Locke, talking about animal rights activists, says "The animal 'rights' terrorists are like the unabomber and Oklahoma city bombers. The
Most everyone agrees that prejudice is wrong, but what they don't realize is that regarding animals as inferior because they are non-human, is a form of prejudice called specieism. For example, Peter Singer states that "The interests of the proposed subjects (animals) are simply denied equal consideration because of their species, not because the interests in question are different, or the damage to their interests is less." Many people argue that humans have the ability to reason and think and animals don't, and because we are smarter than the animals , so, therefore we justly can discriminate against them however we please. According to this logic, we can justly kill and eat the mentally retarded, and test our new and risky medicines on them; but we do not treat them this way, because of one simple reason, they are the same species as us. In addition, "An experiment using a non-human animal is justifiable only if the same experiment would be justifiable if performed on a human being at a similar or lesser level of mental ability who had no prospect for mental development." This is a true statement because an experiment must have a worthy cause to risk a life, and if that cause is not worthy of risking a human life, then it is not worthy of risking an animal's life. If we object morally to an experiment performed on a similarly situated human being (severely retarded or brain damaged) , then the experiment must be morally objectionable when performed on animals. To avoid specieism we must allow that beings which are similar in all relevant respects have a similar right to life, and mere membership of our own species cannot be morally relevant criteria for this right. Animals have emotions similar to humans in that they h
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Approximate Word count = 1175
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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