Rights and Wrongs

Rights and Wrongs

                   "From beasts we scorn as soulless,
                   In forest, field and den,
                   The cry goes up to witness
                   The soullessness of men" (Hartley).
         The yelp and vicious, painful growl of a bulldog losing an eye in a dogfight for entertainment; The screech and struggle of a chicken being boiled alive. Word is spreading that it's about time we take animal care a step further into establishing full animal rights.
         But animal rights? Why should animals have rights? Humans and other animals are different. Non-human animals don't really have feelings, instead acting on instincts of survival. From the article "The Illogic of Animal Rights" by J. Neil Schulman, he explains five reasons of "proof of intelligence and self-consciousness" that humans have and no known animal can duplicate. No animal has been or is
                   1) Being observed as producing or having produced technological
                   artifacts unique to that species;
                   2) Being observed as able to communicate from one generation to the next by a
                   recorded language unique to that species;
                   3) Being observed as basing action on abstract reasoning;
                   4) Being observed as engaging in inductive and deductive reasoning processes;
                   5) Being observed as engaging in non-utilitarian artistic activity unique to that
                   species.
         Animals do not qualify to be our equals; thus, we should not treat them as equals, and should not give them rights that equals would have the privilege of. Not only that, it is unreasonable. No other animal can understand voting, seek higher education, or hope to provide to community as a whole. They live on instinct, unlike humans, and therefore should not be placed on the same level. Humans think beyond themselves, and animals do not have the capacity to do so.
         This nation instead gave animals anti-cruelty laws. All fifty states have their own way of protecting animals and dealing with violators. Forty-four of those states can even charge animal abuse as a felony crime. There is no need to extend animal protection any more than it already is at.
         Animals already have their own law. "Survival of the fittest." By that thinking, humans come out first. Because humans are at the top of the food chain, because humans are the most skilled of predators, it is humans who have the choice to make the rules. Those lower on the food chain must deal with the way things turned out.
         For some, their fate is to die in slaughterhouses. For the amount of beef Americans consume, it takes "35 million cows [to be] slaughtered in the U.S. each year" (chattoogariver.org) to keep the supply up with the demand. In "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair, the nation was shocked a century ago with the horrors of inhumane treatment and regulations the slaughterhouses kept. Today our standards are set for humane, healthy conditions in the killing of our meat. The businesses are regularly inspected and assured that the law is followed.
         Even if animals should be given rights, why should we prioritize their issue before current, equally if not more major human problems? Abortion, homelessness, and cures for diseases - we should deal with human concerns before moving on to others.
         How would an animal sympathizer look at this? First off, all would agree yes, humans and other animals are different. Animals cannot vote or do mathematics, or think beyond what their genetics are programmed as. But just because they have no "proof of intelligence and self-consciousness," they do have feelings. Take two passages from Loren Eiseley in his essay, "The Bird and the Machine."
                   "It was not the cry of the hawk I had captured; for, by shifting my position
                   against the sun, I was now seeing further up. Straight up out of the sun's eye,
                   where she must have been soaring restlessly above us for untold hours, hurtled
                   his mate. And from far up, ringing from peak to peak of the summits over us,
                   came a cry of such unutterable and ecstatic joy that it sounds down across the
                   years and tingles among the cups on my quiet breakfast table.
         "I saw them both now. He was rising fast to meet her. They met in a great soaring gyre that turned to a whirling circle and a dance of wings. Once more, just once, their two voices, joined in a harsh wild medley of question and response, struck and echoed against the pinnacles of the valley. Then they were gone forever somewhere into those upper regions beyond the eyes of men" (Eiseley).
The birds in Eiseley's essay may not begin to theorize on the essence of life, but they still have emotions, and can be driven by those emotions to soar "restlessly above us for untold hours" in search of a lost mate. The birds in Eiseley's essay may still feel "unutterable and ecstatic joy" the same way humans do, and if there is the feeling of joy, there is also the feeling of pain.
         Animals need rights to ensure no one takes their lives away (both physically and emotionally) at an undue time. Having anti-cruelty laws isn't drastic enough for some people to heed and obey. Animal rights would turn heads.
         Although "Survival of the fittest" may be the law of the animal kingdom, in this day and age man rules everything. It is our responsibility to make sure everyone is fairly, or at least humanely, treated. Peter Singer, an Australian supporter of animal rights who writes on controversial issues and has written over one hundred articles among other writing, speaking, and debates, has a book published called "All Animals are Equal," which looks at past liberations of freedom and the answer to what equality really means.
         Among one of the many philosophical ideas, this one stands out.
         "Equality is a moral ideal, not a simple assertion of fact. There is no logically compelling reason for assuming that a factual difference in ability between two people justifies any difference in the amount of consideration we give to satisfying their needs and interests. The principle of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat humans."
         Singer believes that equality is a moral issue, not something physical attributes or mental capacity can determine. Thus mankind must look inside themselves for the answer of civil rights for animals, instead of relying on any kind of law or belief to guide them, because it is their own heart that should decide the matter.
         Slaughterhouses may have a Federal law to follow, but recently released was a book called "Slaughterhouse" by Gail A. Eisnitz who uncovered the dirty secrets of our meat industries who are sliding back into negligence for the care of their products. Their practices include and are not limited to; captive bolt stunning: where a "pistol" shoots a metal rod at the animal's brain, but often misses its mark; Electric stunning, where the current knocks the animal unconscious and the butcher slits their throat (except when there's insignificant voltage, which keeps the animal sensible but paralyzed); and ritual slaughter: where the arteries are sliced open and the animal is allowed to bleed to death, which can take up to a full minute of agony and fear (www.veganoutreach.org). These practices are against Federal law claiming humane treatment for the killing of animals, yet they are being disregarded.          This is why we need stronger laws to protect farm animals, ones that will not let slaughterhouses easily avert their eyes to.
         Why should animal rights be addressed now instead of later? PETA answers this in their FAQ section of their website - "There are very serious problems in the world that deserve our attention, and cruelty to animals is one of them. We should try to alleviate suffering wherever we can. Helping animals is not any more or less important than helping human beings-they are both important. Animal suffering and human suffering are interconnected."
         Although other animals may not be as intelligent or self-consciousness, may not need the same rights or live under the same "laws" as humans, we should still treat them with respect and give them the basic rights and freedoms we ourselves enjoy. This issue should be considered and acted upon in the near future instead of being left on the back burner while hundreds of livestock are put to the death daily, sometimes sickeningly brutally. Animals have feelings too, and can suffer just the same as we can. It is our moral responsibility to see they do not receive any unnecessary pain. Our nation needs to stand together and put its foot down in a mighty resolve to give animals the rights they deserve.
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Work Cited
"About Peta." Peta.org. 27 April 2008. <http://www.peta.org/about/faq.asp>.
Eiseley, Loren. The Immense Journey. New York: Vintage, 1957.
M. Frida Hartley. The Quote Garden. 3 September 2007. 28 April 2008. <http://www.quotegarden.com/a-rights.html>.
Orr, Eric. Factory Beef. 23 May 2007. 20 May 2008. <http://www.chattoogariver.org/index.php?quart=W2004&req=beef>.
Regan, Tom, and Peter Singer. Animal Rights and Human Obligations. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1989.
Schulman, J. Neil. The Illogic of Animal Rights. 16 April 2004. 27 April 2008. <http://www.pulpless.com/jneil/aniright.html>.
"Slaughterhouses." Vegan Outreach. 10 April 2001. 10 May 2008. <http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/slaughterhouses.html>.