essay on animals have rights too

The Importance of Animal Rights Essay

Animal rights are a matter of active debate in society nowadays since there are many related issues that, being unresolved, may endanger many creatures inhabiting the planet. Animals play a significant part in human lives, which is why humanity puts much effort into protecting them, creating various associations, organizing charity events, and educating children about the importance of different species. However, many people treat other living creatures as if they had no rights, which often leads to suffering, high mortality rates, and generally poor animal welfare. They should have legal rights since they significantly influence the economy, make people’s lives better, and do not significantly differ from humans in many senses.

First of all, animals significantly impact human lives since many species contribute to the world economy by producing fur, food, and other essential products. Blattner argues that animals are people’s co-workers, which is a common opinion among researchers and farmers (33). However, people do not always recognize the contributions to society made by animals. According to statistics, a single cow produces more than 5,000 liters of milk per year, which is probably enough for several people to consume at the same time (Blattner 33). Many cows have to suffer to achieve that production level as they are forcefully impregnated and separated from their families. In other words, people treat cows improperly to gain as much benefit as possible, and they do not even appreciate animals for their contribution to food production.

Furthermore, animals can help vulnerable groups such as autistic children or people with mental illnesses. Concerning humans, animals do not understand disabilities or ugliness, which is why these creatures can love others under no conditions (Baka et al. 11). Thus, domestic pets can provide a positive atmosphere of socialization for people who lack an opportunity or desire to socialize among humans. Baka et al. report that animals can also help little children develop empathy as they can learn to understand others’ needs by putting themselves into their pets’ places (11). Animals can make people’s lives better, which is a weighty reason for them to have the same rights as people do.

Finally, it is imperative to clarify that there is no actual reason to consider rights only as an element of human society. Humans and animals are living creatures that inhabit the same Earth, and all of them should have the same rights here. It is well-known that various animal species lived on this planet long before the first human was born. These facts make it unclear why the only species that should have legal rights are humans. Cesario argues that rights should not be “limited to members of a species that can petition for rights and respect the rights of others” (40). In many respects, humans are animals, which is why both groups should have the same, or at least similar, rights.

Overall, animals should have rights as they contribute to the world economy and improve people’s lives by providing favorable socializing conditions, and there is no reason to believe that animals are different from humans. Like any living creature, every animal is a part of this planet, and it should be outlawed to treat them as if they had no rights. Animals should not be subjected to torture and poor living conditions, and people should ensure their welfare by giving them the corresponding rights.

Works Cited

Baka, Alexandra, et al., “Animal rights.” Open Schools Journal for Open Science, vol. 3, no. 3, 2020, pp. 1-14.

Blattner, Charlotte. “Should Animals Have a Right to Work? Promises and Pitfalls.” Animal Studies Journal, vol. 9, no. 1, 2020, pp. 32-92.

Cesario, Anthony. “Reconciling the Irreconcilable: A Property Rights Approach to Resolving the Animal Rights Debate.” Studia Humana, vol. 10, no. 4, 2021, pp. 36-65.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, February 18). The Importance of Animal Rights. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-importance-of-animal-rights/

"The Importance of Animal Rights." IvyPanda , 18 Feb. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/the-importance-of-animal-rights/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'The Importance of Animal Rights'. 18 February.

IvyPanda . 2023. "The Importance of Animal Rights." February 18, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-importance-of-animal-rights/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Importance of Animal Rights." February 18, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-importance-of-animal-rights/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Importance of Animal Rights." February 18, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-importance-of-animal-rights/.

• Is Faux Fur Responsible for the Rebirth of the highly coveted Real Fur to the Fashion Industry?
• Hybrid Cows That Produce Human Milk for Infants
• Will Reducing the Number of Cows Lead to Saving the Planet
• Ethics of Using Animals in Biological Research
• Circus as the Central Place of Animal Rights Violation
• Fight for Animal Rights in Modern Realities
• Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations and Negative Effects
• Ethical Question on Producing Eggs From Caged Chicken

Featured Topics

Featured series.

A series of random questions answered by Harvard experts.

Explore the Gazette

Read the latest.

Footnote leads to exploration of start of for-profit prisons in N.Y.

Should NATO step up role in Russia-Ukraine war?

It’s on Facebook, and it’s complicated

They can think, feel pain, love. isn’t it time animals had rights.

Martha Nussbaum lays out ethical, legal case in new book

Martha Nussbaum

Excerpted from “Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility” by Martha C. Nussbaum, M.A. ’71, Ph.D. ’75

Animals are in trouble all over the world. Our world is dominated by humans everywhere: on land, in the seas, and in the air. No non-human animal escapes human domination. Much of the time, that domination inflicts wrongful injury on animals: whether through the barbarous cruelties of the factory meat industry, through poaching and game hunting, through habitat destruction, through pollution of the air and the seas, or through neglect of the companion animals that people purport to love.

In a way, this problem is age-old. Both Western and non-Western philosophical traditions have deplored human cruelty to animals for around two millennia. The Hindu emperor Ashoka (c. 304–232 bce), a convert to Buddhism, wrote about his efforts to give up meat and to forgo all practices that harmed animals. In Greece the Platonist philosophers Plutarch (46–119 ce) and Porphyry (c. 234–305 ce) wrote detailed treatises deploring human cruelty to animals, describing their keen intelligence and their capacity for social life, and urging humans to change their diet and their way of life. But by and large these voices have fallen on deaf ears, even in the supposedly moral realm of the philosophers, and most humans have continued to treat most animals like objects, whose suffering does not matter — although they sometimes make an exception for companion animals. Meanwhile, countless animals have suffered cruelty, deprivation, and neglect.

Because the reach of human cruelty has expanded, so too has the involvement of virtually all people in it. Even people who do not consume meat produced by the factory farming industry are likely to have used single-use plastic items, to use fossil fuels mined beneath the ocean and polluting the air, to dwell in areas in which elephants and bears once roamed, or to live in high-rise buildings that spell death for migratory birds. The extent of our own implication in practices that harm animals should make every person with a conscience consider what we can all do to change this situation. Pinning guilt is less important than accepting the fact that humanity as a whole has a collective duty to face and solve these problems.

So far, I have not spoken of the extinction of animal species, because this is a book about loss and deprivation suffered by individual creatures, each of whom matters. Species as such do not suffer loss. However, extinction never takes place without massive suffering of individual creatures: the hunger of a polar bear, starving on an ice floe, unable to cross the sea to hunt; the sadness of an orphan elephant, deprived of care and community as the species dwindles rapidly; the mass extinctions of song-bird species as a result of unbreathable air, a horrible death. When human practices hound species toward extinction, member animals always suffer greatly and live squashed and thwarted lives. Besides, the species themselves matter for creating diverse ecosystems in which animals can live well.

Extinctions would take place even without human intervention. Even in such cases we might have reasons to intervene to stop them, because of the importance of biodiversity. But scientists agree that today’s extinctions are between one thousand and ten thousand times higher than the natural extinction rate. (Our uncertainty is huge, because we are very ignorant of how many species there actually are, particularly where fish and insects are concerned.) Worldwide, approximately one-quarter of the world’s mammals and over 40 percent of amphibians are currently threatened with extinction. These include several species of bear, the Asian elephant (endangered), the African elephant (threatened), the tiger, six species of whale, the gray wolf, and so many more. All in all, more than 370 animal species are either endangered or threatened, using the criteria of the US Endangered Species Act, not including birds, and a separate list of similar length for birds. Asian songbirds are virtually extinct in the wild, on account of the lucrative trade in these luxury items. And many other species of birds have recently become extinct. Meanwhile, the international treaty called CITES that is supposed to protect birds (and many other creatures) is toothless and unenforced. The story of this book is not that story of mass extinction, but the sufferings of individual creatures that take place against this background of human indifference to biodiversity.

“The extent of our own implication in practices that harm animals should make every person with a conscience consider what we can all do to change this situation.”

There is a further reason why the ethical evasion of the past must end now. Today we know far more about animal lives than we did even 50 years ago. We know much too much for the glib excuses of the past to be offered without shame. Porphyry and Plutarch (and Aristotle before them) knew a lot about animal intelligence and sensitivity. But somehow humans find ways of “forgetting” what the science of the past has plainly revealed, and for many centuries most people, including most philosophers, thought animals were “brute beasts,” automata without a subjective sense of the world, without emotions, without society, and perhaps even without the feeling of pain.

Recent decades, however, have seen an explosion of high-level research covering all areas of the animal world. We now know more not only about animals long closely studied — primates and companion animals — but also about animals who are difficult to study — marine mammals, whales, fish, birds, reptiles, and cephalopods.

We know — not just by observation, but by carefully designed experimental work — that all vertebrates and many invertebrates feel pain subjectively, and have, more generally, a subjectively felt view of the world: the world looks like something to them. We know that all of these animals experience at least some emotions (fear being the most ubiquitous), and that many experience emotions like compassion and grief that involve more complex “takes” on a situation. We know that animals as different as dolphins and crows can solve complicated problems and learn to use tools to solve them. We know that animals have complex forms of social organization and social behavior. More recently, we have been learning that these social groups are not simply places where a rote inherited repertory is acted out, but places of complicated social learning. Species as different as whales, dogs, and many types of birds clearly transmit key parts of the species’ repertoire to their young socially, not just genetically.

What are the implications of this research for ethics? Huge, clearly. We can no longer draw the usual line between our own species and “the beasts,” a line meant to distinguish intelligence, emotion, and sentience from the dense life of a “brute beast.” Nor can we even draw a line between a group of animals we already recognize as sort of “like us” — apes, elephants, whales, dogs — and others who are supposed to be unintelligent. Intelligence takes multiple and fascinating forms in the real world, and birds, evolving by a very different path from humans, have converged on many similar abilities. Even an invertebrate such as the octopus has surprising capacities for intelligent perception: an octopus can recognize individual humans, and can solve complex problems, guiding one of its arms through a maze to obtain food using only its eyes. Once we recognize all this we can hardly be unchanged in our ethical thinking. To put a “brute beast” in a cage seems no more wrong than putting a rock in a terrarium. But that is not what we are doing. We are deforming the existence of intelligent and complexly sentient forms of life. Each of these animals strives for a flourishing life, and each has abilities, social and individual, that equip it to negotiate a decent life in a world that gives animals difficult challenges. What humans are doing is to thwart this striving — and this seems wrong.

But even though the time has come to recognize our ethical responsibility to the other animals, we have few intellectual tools to effect meaningful change. The third reason why we must confront what we are doing to animals now, today, is that we have built a world in which two of humanity’s best tools for progress, law and political theory, have, so far, no or little help to offer us. Law — both domestic and international — has quite a lot to say about the lives of companion animals, but very little to say about any other animals. Nor do animals in most nations have what lawyers call “standing”: that is, the status to bring a legal claim if they are wronged. Of course, animals cannot themselves bring a legal claim, but neither can most humans, including children, people with cognitive disabilities — and, to tell the truth, almost everybody, since people have little knowledge of the law. All of us need a lawyer to press our claims. But all the humans I have mentioned — including people with lifelong cognitive disabilities — count, and can bring a legal claim, assisted by an able advocate. The way we have designed the world’s legal systems, animals do not have this simple privilege. They do not count.

Law is built by humans using the theories they have. When those theories were racist, laws were racist. When theories of sex and gender excluded women, so too did law. And there is no denying that most political thought by humans the world over has been human-centered, excluding animals. Even the theories that purport to offer help in the struggle against abuse are deeply defective, built on an inadequate picture of animal lives and animal striving. As a philosopher and political theorist who is also deeply immersed in law and law teaching, I hope to change things with this book.

Copyright © 2022 by Martha Nussbaum. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Share this article

You might like.

Historian traces 19th-century murder case that brought together historical figures, helped shape American thinking on race, violence, incarceration

National security analysts outline stakes ahead of July summit

‘Spermworld’ documentary examines motivations of prospective parents, volunteer donors who connect through private group page 

Epic science inside a cubic millimeter of brain

Researchers publish largest-ever dataset of neural connections

Pop star on one continent, college student on another

Model and musician Kazuma Mitchell managed to (mostly) avoid the spotlight while at Harvard

Finding right mix on campus speech policies

Legal, political scholars discuss balancing personal safety, constitutional rights, academic freedom amid roiling protests, cultural shifts

Animal Rights: Definition, Issues, and Examples

Animal rights advocates believe that non-human animals should be free to live as they wish, without being used, exploited, or otherwise interfered with by humans.

T he idea of giving rights to animals has long been contentious, but a deeper look into the reasoning behind the philosophy reveals ideas that aren’t all that radical. Animal rights advocates want to distinguish animals from inanimate objects, as they are so often considered by exploitative industries and the law.

The animal rights movement strives to make the public aware of the fact that animals are sensitive, emotional , and intelligent beings who deserve dignity and respect. But first, it’s important to understand what the term "animal rights" really means.

What are animal rights?

Animal rights are moral principles grounded in the belief that non-human animals deserve the ability to live as they wish, without being subjected to the desires of human beings. At the core of animal rights is autonomy, which is another way of saying choice . In many countries, human rights are enshrined to protect certain freedoms, such as the right to expression, freedom from torture, and access to democracy. Of course, these choices are constrained depending on social locations like race, class, and gender, but generally speaking, human rights safeguard the basic tenets of what makes human lives worth living. Animal rights aim to do something similar, only for non-human animals.

Animal rights come into direct opposition with animal exploitation, which includes animals used by humans for a variety of reasons, be it for food , as experimental objects, or even pets. Animal rights can also be violated when it comes to human destruction of animal habitats . This negatively impacts the ability of animals to lead full lives of their choosing.

Do animals have rights?

Very few countries have enshrined animal rights into law. However, the US and the UK do have some basic protections and guidelines for how animals can be treated.

The UK Sentience Bill

In 2021, the United Kingdom's House of Commons introduced the Animal Sentience Bill . If passed, this bill would enshrine into law that animals are, in fact, sentient beings, and they deserve humane treatment at the hands of humans. While this law would not afford animals full autonomy, it would be a watershed in the movement to protect animals—officially recognizing their capacity to feel and to suffer, and distinguishing them from inanimate objects.

The US Animal Welfare Act

In 1966, the United States passed the Animal Welfare Act . While it is the biggest federal legislation addressing the treatment of animals to date, its scope is fairly narrow—the law excludes many species, including farmed animals , from its protections. The law does establish some basic guidelines for the sale, transport, and handling of dogs, cats, rabbits, nonhuman primates, guinea pigs, and hamsters. It also protects the psychological welfare of animals who are used in lab experiments, and prohibits the violent practices of dogfighting and cockfighting. Again, this law does not recognize the rights and autonomy of animals—or even their ability to feel pain and suffer—but it does afford non-human animals some basic welfare protections .

What are some examples of animal rights?

While few laws currently exist in the UK or US that recognize or protect animals' rights to enjoy lives free from human interference, the following is a list of examples of animal rights that could one day be enacted:

• Animals may not be used for food.
• Animals may not be hunted.
• The habitats of animals must be protected to allow them to live according to their choosing.
• Animals may not be bred.

What's the difference between animal welfare and animal rights?

Animal rights philosophy is based on the idea that animals should not be used by people for any reason, and that animal rights should protect their interests the way human rights protect people. Animal welfare , on the other hand, is a set of practices designed to govern the treatment of animals who are being dominated by humans, whether for food, research, or entertainment.

Do animals need rights? Pros and cons

The idea of giving animals rights tends to be contentious, given how embedded animal products are within societies such as the United States. Some people, including animal activists, believe in an all-or-nothing approach, where animal rights must be legally enshrined and animals totally liberated from all exploitation. On the other end of the spectrum are people whose livelihoods depend upon animal-based industries. Below are some arguments both in favor of and opposing animal rights.

Arguments in favor of animal rights

Should the rights of animals be recognized, animal exploitative industries would disappear, as would the host of environmental problems they cause, including water pollution, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and deforestation.

Halting the widespread use of animals would also eliminate the systematic cruelty and denial of choice that animal industries perpetuate. The physical and psychological pain endured by animals in places like factory farms has reached a point many consider to be unacceptable , to say the least. Animals are mutilated by humans in several different ways, including castrations, dehorning, and cutting off various body parts, usually without the use of anesthetic.

“ Many species never see the outdoors except on their way to the slaughterhouse.

As their name suggests, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) pack vast numbers of animals in cramped conditions, often forcing animals to perpetually stand in their own waste. Many species—including chickens, cows, and pigs—never see the outdoors except on their way to the slaughterhouse. Recognizing animal rights would necessitate stopping this mistreatment for good.

Arguments against animal rights

Most arguments against animal rights can be traced back to money, because animal exploitation is big business. Factory farming for animal products is a multi-billion-dollar industry. JBS, the world’s largest meatpacker, posted $9 billion in revenue for the third quarter of 2020 alone.

A lesser-known, yet also massive, industry is that which supplies animals for laboratories. The US market for lab rats (who are far less popular than mice for experiments) was valued at over $412 million in 2016. Big industrial producers of animals and animal products have enough political clout to influence legislation—including passing laws making it illegal to document farm conditions—and to benefit from government subsidies.

Many people depend upon animal exploitation for work. On factory farms, relatively small numbers of people can manage vast herds or flocks of animals, thanks to mechanization and other industrial farming techniques. Unfortunately, jobs in industrial meatpacking facilities are also known to be some of the most dangerous in the US. Smaller farmers coming from multi-generational farming families more directly depend upon using animals to make a living and tend to follow welfare standards more judiciously. However, smaller farms have been decreasing in number, due to the proliferation of factory farms against which they often cannot compete.

Although people may lose money or jobs in the transition to animal alternatives, new jobs can be created in the alternative protein sector and other plant-based industries.

When did the animal rights movement begin in the US?

The modern day animal rights movement in the United States includes thousands of individuals and a multitude of groups who advocate for animals in a variety of ways—from lobbying legislators to support animal rights laws, to rescuing animals from situations of abuse and neglect. While individuals throughout history have believed in and fought for animal rights, we can trace back the modern, US-based animal rights movement to the founding of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) in 1866. The group's founder, Henry Burgh , believed that animals are "entitled to kind and respectful treatment at the hands of humans and must be protected under the law." The organization worked with the New York City government to pass and enforce anti-cruelty laws that prevented the abuse of carthorses and provided care for injured horses. Since then, the ASPCA has expanded its advocacy across different non-human animal species—including farmed animals—and many more animal protection groups have sprung up, both locally and nationwide. Currently, there are over 40,000 non-profit organizations identified as animal groups in the US.

Why are animal rights important?

Animal rights are important because they represent a set of beliefs that counteract inaccurate yet long-held assumptions that animals are nothing more than mindless machines—beliefs popularized by western philosopher Rene Descartes in the 17th century. The perception of animals as being unthinking, unfeeling beings justified using them for human desires, resulting in today’s world where farmed mammals outnumber those in the wild, and the majority of these farmed animals are forced to endure harsh conditions on factory farms.

“ Farmed mammals outnumber those in the wild.

But the science is increasingly clear: The animals we eat ( pigs, chickens, cows ), the animals we use in laboratories ( mice and rats ), the animals who provide us with clothing , and those whose backs we ride upon have all been found to possess more cognitive complexity, emotions, and overall sophistication than has long been believed. This sophistication renders animals more susceptible not only to physical pain but also to the psychological impacts caused by the habitual denial of choice. Awareness of their own subjugation forms sufficient reasoning to rethink the ways animals are treated in western societies.

The consequences of animal rights

Currently, laws in the US and UK are geared toward shielding animals from cruelty, not giving them the same freedom of choice that humans have. (Even these laws are sorely lacking, as they fail to protect livestock and laboratory animals.) However, the animal rights movement can still have real-world consequences. Calls for animal liberation from places like factory farms can raise public awareness of the poor living conditions and welfare violations these facilities perpetuate, sometimes resulting in stronger protections, higher welfare standards , and decreasing consumer demand. Each of these outcomes carries economic consequences for producers, as typically it is more expensive for factory farms to provide better living conditions such as more space, or using fewer growth hormones which can result in lower production yields.

Of course, should the animal rights movement achieve its goals , society would look much different than it does today. If people consume more alternative sources of protein, such as plant-based or lab-grown meat, the global environment would be far less impacted. Clothing would be made without leather or other animal products; alternative sources, such as pineapple leather created from waste products from the pineapple industry, could replace toxic tanneries. The fur industry is being increasingly shunned, with fashion labels rejecting fur in favor of faux materials. Ocean ecosystems would be able to recover, replenishing fish populations and seafloor habitats. Today these are razed by bottom trawling fishing, resulting in the clear-cutting of corals that can be thousands of years old .

How you can advocate for animals

A world in which animals are free from human exploitation still seems far off, but we can make choices that create a kinder world for animals, every day. We can start by leaving animals off our plate in favor of plant-based alternatives—a choice that recognizes animals as the sentient beings that they are, and not products for consumption.

When we come together, we can also fight for better protections for animals in the US and around the world. There's a robust movement to hold corporations accountability and end the cruelty of factory farming—an industry which causes immense amount of suffering for billions of animals. If you want to help end this suffering and spread compassion for animals, join our community of online animal activists and take action .

More like this

What Is Animal Welfare and Why Is It Important?

Though critics argue that advocating for animal welfare only cements animals’ exploitation in laboratories, on farms, and in other industrial situations, strengthening welfare standards makes these animals' lives more bearable.

The Ethical Case for Welfare Reform

Industry welfare commitments are good for animals. Here’s why.

TED is supported by ads and partners 00:00

A modern argument for the rights of animals

• social change
• TED Membership

letsgoturkey.org

Animals Have Rights Too

To give rights to an animal means to protect it from the same cruelties that humans are protected from, and to provide it with the same liberties that humans are awarded. However, for most people around the world, it has not progressed beyond the status of a definition. It is mostly still just a statement to appease and reassure that the ideal is being believed in and followed. The fact is, most of us have not yet learned how treat an animal with the same respect and regard with which we treat a human being. We haven’t even yet learned that it has to be done.

It’s Not That They Can’t Think

There was never a time that we weren’t using animals to fulfill our own needs and requirements. However, there is a clear difference between using and abusing, and we have been crossing this line for ages now.

The most widespread notion about animals is that they can’t think, so automatically they can’t feel. However, certain researchers now prove us wrong. Animals do have their own thought processes. Jays are aware of the thieving qualities of other jays, sheep are able to recognize faces, and dolphins learn how to can copy human postures. An experiment conducted with a parrot ended up in it being able to count till seven just by being told the words several times. Certain human traits were also observed when the parrot acted dominating in front of the smaller parrots. He not only managed to learn a multitude of English words by listening and being taught, but he also made up a new word for a food item.

Can Things Be Changed?

Perhaps a way to turn “Animals have rights too” into solid belief rather than just a flimsy declaration is to make it synonymous with “animals have feelings too”. However, in a world where humans are not ready to give fellow human beings their rights, an endeavor to make people practice the rights of animals seems like a bit of a stretch to those who don’t care a whit about the cause or just pretend to.

Setting out to unite the whole world under a single cause just isn’t in a day’s work. But a difference might just be made if, every time we see an animal, we think of it as having a tiny hand in making the world what it is instead of being just a prop.

The Argument for Animal Rights

How are those rights different from human rights?

• University of Southern California
• Animal Rights
• Endangered Species

Advocacy groups and humanitarians alike have long argued for the rights of animals around the world, fighting for their right as sentient creatures to a life free of torture and suffering. Some advocate for not using animals as food, clothing or other goods and others such as vegans even go as far as to denounce the use of animal by-products. 

In the United States, people often say that they love animals and that they consider their pets to be part of the family, but many draw the line at animal rights . Isn't it enough that we treat them humanely? Why should animals have rights? What rights should animals have? How are those rights different from human rights?

The fact of the matter is that since the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued the 1966 Animal Welfare Act , even animals used in commercial farming are entitled to a certain base-level of treatment. But that differs from the wants of animal rights activist groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) or the more extreme British direct-action group known as the Animal Liberation Front. 

• Animal Rights Versus Animal Welfare

The animal welfare view, which is distinguishable from the animal rights view , is that humans can use and exploit animals as long as the animals are treated humanely and the use is not too frivolous. To animal rights activists, the main problem with this view is that humans do not have the right to use and exploit animals, no matter how well the animals are treated. Buying, selling, breeding, confining, and killing animals infringe on the animals' rights, no matter how "humanely" they are treated.

Furthermore, the idea of treating animals humanely is vague and means something different to everyone. For instance, an egg farmer may think that there is nothing wrong with killing male chicks by grinding them up alive to cut feeding costs versus yield. Also, "cage-free eggs" are not as humane as the industry would have us believe. In fact, a cage-free egg operation buys their eggs from the same hatcheries that factory farms buy from, and those hatcheries kill the male chicks as well. 

The idea of "humane" meat also seems absurd to animal rights activists, since the animals must be killed to obtain the meat. And for farms to be profitable, those animals are killed as soon as they reach slaughter weight, which is still very young. 

Why Should Animals Have Rights?

Animal rights activism is based on the idea that animals are sentient and that speciesism is wrong, the former of which is scientifically backed — an international panel of neuroscientists declared in 2012 that non-human animals have consciousness — and the latter is still hotly contested among humanitarians.

Animal rights activists argue that because animals are sentient, the only reason humans are treated differently is speciesism, which is an arbitrary distinction based on the incorrect belief that humans are the only species deserving of moral consideration. Speciesism, like racism and sexism, is wrong because of animals popular in the meat industry like cows, pigs and chickens suffer when confined, tortured and slaughtered and there is no reason to morally distinguish between humans and non-human animals.

The reason that people have rights is to prevent unjust suffering. Similarly, the reason that animal rights activists want animals to have rights is to prevent them from suffering unjustly. We have animal cruelty statutes to prevent some animal suffering, although U.S law prohibits only the most egregious, extraordinary animal cruelty. These laws do nothing to prevent most forms of animal exploitation, including fur, veal , and  foie gras .

Human Rights Versus Animal Rights

No one is asking for animals to have the same rights as humans, but in an animal rights activist's ideal world, animals would have the right to live free of human use and exploitation — a  vegan world  where animals are no longer used for food, clothing or entertainment.

While there is some debate as to what basic human rights are, most people recognize that other humans have certain fundamental rights. According to the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, human rights include "the right to life, liberty and security of person..an adequate standard of living...to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution...to own property...freedom of opinion and expression...to education...of thought, conscience and religion; and the right to freedom from torture and degrading treatment, among others." 

These rights are different from animal rights because we have the power to ensure that other humans have access to food and housing, are free from torture, and can express themselves. On the other hand, it's not in our power to ensure that every bird has a nest or that every squirrel has an acorn. Part of animal rights is leaving the animals alone to live their lives, without encroaching on their world or their lives.

• What Are Animal Rights?
• Basic Tenets of Animal Rights
• Animal Cruelty in Circuses
• Responses to Top Arguments Against Animal Rights
• What's Wrong With Aquariums?
• Is Pet Ownership Ethical?
• Animal Rights and the Ethics of Testing
• What's Wrong with Eating Pork?
• Why Vegans Don't Wear Silk
• The Top 10 Animal Rights Issues
• Should Dogs Have Legal Rights?
• Overview of the Humane Slaughter Act
• Horse Racing and Animal Rights
• What's the Difference Between a Zoo and a Sanctuary?
• Arguments for and Against Humane Meat

• IELTS Scores
• Life Skills Test
• Find a Test Centre
• Alternatives to IELTS
• General Training
• Academic Word List
• Topic Vocabulary
• Collocation
• Phrasal Verbs
• Writing eBooks
• Reading eBook
• All eBooks & Courses
• Sample Essays

Animal Rights Essay

This IELTS  animal rights essay  discusses the exploitation of animals by humans.

People who believe in animal rights think that they should not be treated cruelly, for example in experiments or for sport.

'To exploit' means to benefit from something in an unfair way. Take a look at the question:

A growing number of people feel that animals should not be exploited by people and that they should have the same rights as humans, while others argue that humans must employ animals to satisfy their various needs, including uses for food and research.

Discuss both views and give your opinion.

Discussing 'Two Opinions'

Animals should not be exploited by people and they should have the same rights as humans. Humans must employ animals to satisfy their various needs, including uses for food and research.

In this essay you are being given two opposing opinions to discuss.

This is the first opinion:

• Animals should not be exploited by people and they should have the same rights as humans.

This is the second opinion:

• Humans must employ animals to satisfy their various needs, including uses for food and research.

In this type of essay, you must look at both sides. In other words you need to discuss the arguments FOR animal rights and AGAINST .

You must also ensure you give YOUR opinion.

Organising the Essay

One way to organize an essay like this is to consider both opinions, then give your opinion in a final paragraph ( see this example ) or dedicate a whole final paragraph to your opinion ( see this example ).

Another way to write an essay like this is to also make one of the 'for' or 'against' opinions your opinion as well.

Look at the model animal rights essay below. The second body paragraph discusses the first opinion, but the topic sentence makes it clear that this paragraph is also representing the writers opinion as well:

However, I do not believe these arguments stand up to scrutiny.

This now means that in two body paragraphs you have covered all three parts of the question from the animal rights essay:

1. First opinion 2. Second opinion 3. Your opinion

The advantage of doing it this way rather than having a separate paragraph is that you do not need to come up with new ideas for a new paragraph.

If you have a separate paragraph with your opinion you may find you cannot think of any new ideas or you may end up repeating the same things as in your previous paragraphs.

IELTS Writing Example

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own experience or knowledge.

Write at least 250 words.

Animal Rights Essay - Model Answer

Animals have always been used by humans in some form to satisfy their needs. However, while some people believe that animals should be treated in the same way humans are and have similar rights, others think that it is more important to use them as we desire for food and medical research. 

With regard to the exploitation of animals, people believe it is acceptable for several reasons. Firstly, they think that humans are the most important beings on the planet, and everything must be done to ensure human survival. If this means experimenting on animals so that we can fight and find cures for diseases, then this takes priority over animal suffering. Furthermore, it is believed by some that animals do not feel pain or loss as humans do, so if we have to kill animals for food or other uses, then this is morally acceptable.

However, I do not believe these arguments stand up to scrutiny. To begin, it has been shown on numerous occasions by secret filming in laboratories via animal rights groups that animals feel as much pain as humans do, and they suffer when they are kept in cages for long periods. In addition, a substantial amount of animal research is done for cosmetics, not to find cures for diseases, so this is unnecessary. Finally, it has also been proven that humans can get all the nutrients and vitamins that they need from green vegetables and fruit. Therefore, again, having to kill animals for food is not an adequate argument.

To sum up, although some people argue killing animals for research and food is ethical, I would argue there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that this is not the case, and, therefore, steps must be taken to improve the rights of animals.

(Words 290) 

<<< Back

Next >>>

More Discuss Two Opinion Essays:

Extraterrestrial Life Essay: Should we look for life on other planets?

This extraterrestrial life essay is an IELTS opinion essay where you have to discuss both sides of an issue then give your own opinion.

Sources for Stories Essay: Should parents read to their children?

This sources for stories essay asks for your opinion on the best way for children to get stories. Is it from parents reading to them or other ways?

Childcare Essay: Should family or carers look after young children?

Childcare Essay: In the essay you have to discuss two sides of an argument. The first is that it is better if pre-school children are looked after at home with relatives such as grandparents. The second opinion is that children should be looked after at childcare centres.

Diet and Health Essay: Who is responsible for diet and health?

Diet and Health Essay for IELTS: This model examines the extent to which individuals or governments should be responsible for health. Read a model answer and useful comments about the essay which will help you to improve your IELTS Score.

IELTS Essays: What is the best way to reduce crime?

IELTS essays online with comments by an IELTS instructor - A writing sample on the topic of reducing crime.

Child Development Essay: What factors influence a child's development?

Child Development Essay for IELTS. The essay is about the factors that affect the way that children develop. It provides you with a model answer and comments on the response to help you know how to improve your band score.

Donating Money to Charity Essay: Where should the money go?

Donating Money to Charity Essay: IELTS model answer to an essay on the topic of giving locally or to national and international charities.

Influence of Scientists or Politicians Essay

Influence of Scientists or Politicians Essay- Model answer for IELTS. Who has had the most influence on our world? In this essay you have to discuss both sides.

IELTS Essay Becoming Independent

This IELTS essay discussed whether people are becoming more independent than they were in the past. This is a question that has come up a few times in the test. This is discussion type essay as you have to discuss both sides of an argument and come to a conclusion.

Zoo Essay: Are zoos cruel or do they protect animals?

This is a recent zoo essay question from the IELTS test (June 2018). Essay about zoos have come up a few times in the IELTS test so it's worth studying same sample questions and sample essays about the topic.

Formal and Informal Education Essay: What age should it start?

This formal and informal education essay is about whether it is best for children to begin their formal education at school when they are 7 rather than much younger.

IELTS Writing Example: What are the aims of a university education?

IELTS writing example essays. This is an essay on the aims of university education. In this essay, two opposing opinions need to be discussed. It is important to understand how to answer this type of question in the IELTS exam.

Any comments or questions about this page or about IELTS? Post them here. Your email will not be published or shared.

Before you go...

Check out the ielts buddy band 7+ ebooks & courses.

Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it?

• Click on the HTML link code below.
• Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.

Band 7+ eBooks

"I think these eBooks are FANTASTIC!!! I know that's not academic language, but it's the truth!"

Linda, from Italy, Scored Band 7.5

IELTS Modules:

Other resources:.

• All Lessons
• Band Score Calculator
• Writing Feedback
• Speaking Feedback
• Teacher Resources
• Free Downloads
• Recent Essay Exam Questions
• Books for IELTS Prep
• Useful Links

Recent Articles

Useful Language for IELTS Graphs

May 16, 24 04:44 AM

Taking a Gap Year

May 14, 24 03:00 PM

IELTS Essay: Loving Wildlife and Nature

May 10, 24 02:36 AM

Important pages

IELTS Writing IELTS Speaking IELTS Listening   IELTS Reading All Lessons Vocabulary Academic Task 1 Academic Task 2 Practice Tests

Connect with us

Copyright © 2022- IELTSbuddy All Rights Reserved

IELTS is a registered trademark of University of Cambridge, the British Council, and IDP Education Australia. This site and its owners are not affiliated, approved or endorsed by the University of Cambridge ESOL, the British Council, and IDP Education Australia.

Home — Essay Samples — Environment — Animal Ethics — Animal Right: Understanding the Importance of Keeping Animals Safe

Animal Right: Understanding The Importance of Keeping Animals Safe

• Categories: Animal Cruelty Animal Ethics

About this sample

Words: 2473 |

13 min read

Published: Jan 28, 2021

Words: 2473 | Pages: 5 | 13 min read

Bibliography

• National Anti-Vivisection Society, 2019, www.navs.org
• Curzer, Howard J., et al. “The Three Rs of Animal Research: What They Mean for the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and Why.” Science And Engineering Ethics, vol. 22, no. 2, Apr. 2016, pp. 549–565. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s11948-015-9659-8.
• Everett, Jennifer. 'Environmental Ethics, Animal Welfarism, and the Problem of Predation: A Bambi Lover's Respect For Nature.' Ethics & the Environment, vol. 6 no. 1, 2001, pp. 42-67. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/een.2001.0005
• Fiber-Ostrow, Pamela, and Jarret S. Lovell. “Behind a Veil of Secrecy: Animal Abuse, Factory Farms, and Ag-Gag Legislation.” Contemporary Justice Review, vol. 19, no. 2, June 2016, pp. 230–249. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/10282580.2016.1168257.
• Pewitt-Jones, Kim. “Earth Wars: PETA, Sea Shepherds, Greenpeace and Ethics.” Southwestern Mass Communication Journal, vol. 29, no. 1, Jan. 2014, pp. 1–22. EBSCOhost, login.libproxy.noctrl.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=100060532&site=eds-live.
• “Transportation of Animals.” Animal Law Legal Center, 1 Mar. 1970, www.animallaw.info/statute/us-food-animal-twenty-eight-hour-law.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr. Karlyna PhD

Verified writer

• Expert in: Law, Crime & Punishment Environment

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

2 pages / 1005 words

2 pages / 878 words

1 pages / 393 words

2 pages / 804 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Animal Ethics

The practice of keeping animals in zoos has sparked a passionate debate that revolves around ethical considerations and conservation goals. This essay explores the multifaceted arguments for and against the existence of zoos, [...]

De La Cruz, R. A. 'Ecological and Interspecies Ethics'.Regan, T. (1983). The Case for Animal Rights. University of California Press.

The practice of keeping animals in captivity, whether in zoos, aquariums, circuses, or other forms of confinement, has long been a subject of ethical debate and controversy. While some argue that captivity serves educational and [...]

Lolita, a female orca, has been living in captivity at the Miami Seaquarium for over five decades, captivating audiences with her performances and interactions. Yet, behind the spectacle lies a story of captivity and ethical [...]

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). (n.d.). Animal cruelty laws in Canada. Retrieved from Perennial.

The Bahamas are a ground of about 700 islands and 2,400 uninhabited islets and cays lying 50 mi off the east coast of Florida. Only about 30 of the islands are inhabited; the most important is New Providence (80 sq. mi; 207 sq. [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

Find anything you save across the site in your account

How Far Should We Carry the Logic of the Animal-Rights Movement?

By Kelefa Sanneh

One morning, in February of this year, Zahid Badroodien, who oversees the Committee on Water and Sanitation in Cape Town, South Africa, posted on X that he had been alerted to “a sewage smell blanketing parts of the city.” He assured residents that inspectors had been dispatched to wastewater-treatment facilities, but half an hour later he announced that a different culprit had been identified: a ship in the harbor that was transporting cattle—nineteen thousand in all—from Brazil to Iraq, with a brief layover in town to replenish their feed. On board, conditions were “awful,” according to a veterinary consultant who conducted an inspection. A single cow discovered in such a state might have become a cause célèbre, but it was harder to rally around nineteen thousand of them. Within a day, the cows were back at sea, where virtually no one could know, or smell, their plight.

There is a name for the cruel, and correspondingly clandestine, process by which many animals become meat: “factory farming,” a term that is usually wielded as an insult, especially since the publication, in 1975, of “Animal Liberation,” an incendiary book by the philosopher Peter Singer. “In general, we are ignorant of the abuse of living creatures that lies behind the food we eat,” Singer wrote, and he wanted to destroy both this ignorance and the industry behind the abuse. He halfway succeeded. “Animal Liberation” helped bring new militancy to a cause formerly associated with decorous humane societies and peaceable hippies. The book also helped inspire the Animal Liberation Front, a group devoted to direct action against farms and labs that abused animals. And it turned Singer into one of the most prominent philosophers in the world, especially among non-philosophers.

The movement against cruelty to animals is broadly popular, at least in theory—lots of people are bothered by the way livestock live and die, although not bothered enough to stop eating them. But Singer is a polarizing figure, known for his willingness to follow his logic to conclusions that some might find bizarre, or evil. Rejecting what he calls “speciesism,” Singer has argued that we ought to treat creatures according to their cognitive capacities; by this logic, he concedes, a “chimpanzee, dog, or pig” might demonstrate “a higher degree of self-awareness and a greater capacity for meaningful relations with others than a severely retarded infant or someone in a state of advanced senility.” Directly and indirectly, “Animal Liberation” has inspired generations of people who would never endorse many of the claims made by the person who wrote it, and it sometimes seems that Singer’s support for animal liberation is viewed today as the least objectionable thing about him.

Discover notable new fiction and nonfiction.

In “ Animal Liberation Now ” (HarperCollins), a revised version of his book, Singer considers all that has and hasn’t changed since 1975. “The media no longer ridicules animal rights activists; mostly, it takes them seriously,” he writes. He is curious about the prospect of lab-grown meat, and attentive to research indicating that a scallop is more sentient than an oyster, and therefore less edible, at least for someone with his commitments. He also seems slightly astonished that more people have not joined him in opposing the “tyranny” of speciesism. “There are now more animals suffering in laboratories and factory farms than ever before,” he writes, but he remains hopeful that one day people will attend to this suffering.

Martha Nussbaum, a fellow-philosopher, is one of many who admire Singer’s animal advocacy without fully endorsing his program. In “ Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility ” (Simon & Schuster), Nussbaum praises Singer as a “sophisticated” thinker while suggesting that it is wise to consider not just the suffering of animals but how best to help them live the kinds of lives they seem to want to live. Most of her proposals reflect a left-liberal world view: she has great faith in the ability of experts and government officials, working together, to better regulate our treatment of animals. And yet the movement to protect animals need not be a partisan cause. This, anyway, is the position of Matthew Scully, a Republican speechwriter who has spent decades arguing that conservatives ought to care more about the lives and deaths of animals. He made his case in “ Dominion ,” from 2002, which is one of the most bracing books on the topic since “Animal Liberation,” partly because it pushes so hard against Singer’s approach. Scully refines his argument in “ Fear Factories ” (Arezzo), a new collection of essays that urges both right- and left-leaning readers to reconsider their assumptions. One of them, from 2013, excoriates the “cheap nature worship” of contemporary environmentalists, who have, Scully says, been too distracted by climate concerns to pay attention to the slaughter of elephants. “It’s all carbon, all the time,” he writes, “and for all of the movement’s alarmism on other fronts, somehow the end days of the earth’s largest land animal have gone practically unremarked.”

Link copied

Debates about animals tend to be less about how to treat them and more about how much we should care when they are mistreated. (Nearly everyone can probably agree that, in an ideal world, nineteen thousand cattle would not be crowded onto a ship so fetid that it can’t come near land without alarming the authorities.) Historically, advocacy for animals often failed because the cause was judged unserious. This perception began to change in the late nineteenth century, thanks to a handful of activists, many of whom were also involved in other causes: abolition, child protection, temperance. A century later, animal welfare and temperance were joined again in the punk offshoot known as hardcore, in which a number of leading musicians embraced a “straight edge” ethos that was anti-drug and, relatedly, anti-meat. (Ian MacKaye, the musician credited with coining the term, has said that he viewed eschewing meat as a “logical extension” of straight edge.) It was through hardcore that I encountered and, for a few years, adopted the vegan diet, equally inspired by both the cause and the culture that surrounded it, or maybe unequally inspired. We are a self-obsessed species, and indeed self-obsession is part of what distinguishes us from other species; we are more different from, say, chimpanzees than chimpanzees are from orangutans. Perhaps it should not be a surprise that so many animal-centric movements spend so much time thinking and talking about humans instead.

Many religious traditions take killing an animal to be a grave act, though not necessarily a gravely wrong one. One of the first verses in the Bible is a vegan commandment: “Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” But, after the flood, God told Noah, “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you,” balancing this permissive standard with a stern caveat: “But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.”

The idea of principled and thoroughgoing veganism seems to have arrived more recently, at least in the West. In England, in 1714, a Dutch-born writer named Bernard Mandeville published an odd and excellent book called “The Fable of the Bees,” which opened with an apian allegory in verse form about laissez-faire government, but also contained several essays, including one that framed meat eating as a moral evil. “I have often thought, if it was not for this Tyranny which Custom usurps over us, that Men of any tolerable Good-nature could never be reconcil’d to the killing of so many Animals for their daily Food, as long as the bountiful Earth so plentifully provides them with Varieties of vegetable Dainties,” Mandeville wrote. “I question whether ever any body so much as killed a Chicken without Reluctancy the first time.” When Jeremy Bentham’s “An Introduction to the Principles of Morals of Legislation” was first printed, in 1780, he included an extraordinary footnote that proposed a kind of beastly revolution. “The day may come, when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny,” Bentham wrote. “The question is not, Can they reason ? nor, Can they talk ? but, Can they suffer ?” By the nineteenth century, animal-welfare groups were growing in England, and in 1848 the satirical magazine Punch noted the emergence of a “great Vegetarian movement,” imagining a kind of meatless mania. “There are vegetarian missionaries going about the country inculcating the doctrine of peas and potatoes,” the magazine reported, adding that “a silver medal will be awarded to the vegetarian who will dispose of one hundred heads of celery with the utmost celerity.”

In a new history titled “ Our Kindred Creatures ” (Knopf), Bill Wasik, a journalist, and Monica Murphy, a veterinarian and a writer, show how this movement took root in America. They compare the “rise of animal-welfare consciousness,” in the late nineteenth century, to the rapid growth in support of same-sex marriage, during the twenty-tens, but they decline to simplify what turns out to be a sprawling and rather diffuse story of complicated advocates and mixed messages. An astonishingly confident and well-connected activist named Henry Bergh founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1866, and during the next year he pushed New York City to make it illegal to “neglect, maliciously kill, maim, wound, injure, torture or cruelly beat” any animal. (Bergh also bemoaned the influence of immigrants with a taste for bullfighting and other “barbarous” practices; formed a complicated alliance with P. T. Barnum , the circus master; and emerged as a leading critic of vaccination, which he viewed as an affront to humans and animals alike.) In Massachusetts, a local chapter of the A.S.P.C.A. launched a publication with a name that was meant as a tribute, though it now sounds like an insult: Our Dumb Animals. They were, of course, “dumb” in the original sense of the word; the magazine pledged to “speak for those that cannot speak for themselves.” An activist named Caroline Earle White, who came from a family of abolitionists, called in 1887 for a total ban on medical experiments involving animals—an unpopular cause, but one that was, she maintained, no more far-fetched than “the abolition of Negro slavery” had recently been.

Despite these decades of foment, the publication of “Animal Liberation,” roughly a century later, came as a shock. In fearsomely logical prose, Singer argued not just that we ought to treat animals better but that we had no right to treat them any differently than we treat one another. His radical repudiation of speciesism, defined as “a prejudice or attitude of bias toward the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species,” forced readers to reconsider a range of practices that they had learned to regard as normal. The power of the idea lay in its simplicity, which left Singer free to devote much of the book to considering the practical implications: the intentional horrors of animal-research laboratories, and the unintentional—or perhaps just unnecessary—horrors of factory farming, in which animals are often crammed together in miserable conditions and subjected to painful operations such as “de-beaking,” to prevent chickens from pecking one another to death, and “tail-docking,” to prevent overstressed and understimulated pigs from gnawing one another’s tails into bloody stumps.

Singer followed the chapter on factory farming with one about how to become a vegetarian, and he included, at the end, a list of recipes, which probably introduced more than a few Western readers to a form of “bean curd, sometimes called bean cake, or tofu .” In “Animal Liberation Now,” the recipes have been updated, with more variety and no more cheese. Singer has become what he calls a “flexible vegan” (he has said that he sometimes eats eggs, provided they have been taken from free-range hens), but he doesn’t seem inclined to worry much about either the purity or the deliciousness of his diet. “Frying the tofu is optional,” he tells readers, in the new recipe section, adding that “it tastes better, but I don’t like to consume too much oil, so sometimes I do it, and sometimes not.” Generations of readers probably learned to loathe McDonald’s from reading Singer, but he himself is too practical-minded to hold a grudge, and so in February he startled some of his fans by praising the company, on X. “Let’s give credit where it is due: @McDonald’s have reached their goal of sourcing 100% their U.S. egg supply from cage-free hens, as they pledged they would,” he wrote. “It’s not nearly enough, but it’s a step forward on a long march.”

Singer acknowledges his debt to Bentham, whose question is at the heart of much of Singer’s work: “Can they suffer ?” But, as a consequentialist, he realizes that his book will likely do more good if it offends fewer people, and so he deëmphasizes his suggestion that infanticide might sometimes be justified, though he doesn’t retract it. He has excised his claim that there “seem to be certain measurable differences between both races and sexes,” and that “we do not yet know how much of these differences is really due to the genetic endowments of the different races and sexes.” Singer’s point, in 1975, was that these differences, whether between sexes or races or species, do not justify discrimination. Still, he believes that some differences do matter, especially differences in sentience, because sentience is what enables suffering, and suffering is what we ought to want to prevent.

In many ways, this is a generous approach, one that asks us to search everywhere for mistreatment, and redress any that we find. Bentham and Singer’s alertness to cruelty, when their contemporaries were happy to ignore it, is part of what can make them seem like visionaries today. But the focus on sentience and suffering can also seem pitiless. Singer’s approach leaves no room for speciesism, which means it leaves no room for the idea that every human is valuable because of his humanity—no room for what Christians call grace, the sense that all people have something precious and perhaps sacred in common. Singer puts every living creature on the same scale, each with its own chance to earn, through sentience, the right not to be mistreated. This means that humanity is on the scale, too, and so perhaps are individual humans, all of us liable to be judged on precisely how sentient we are.

Singer, to his credit, is motivated by a desire to solve big problems, but this means that the small lives of animals don’t figure much in his book. Nussbaum, by contrast, views a wide spectrum of creatures with both affection and awe; they seem “wonderful” to her, as to so many of us, and she thinks we should pay more attention to that intuition. (The book is dedicated to her daughter, Rachel, who worked as an attorney for an animal-welfare group, and died in 2019.) “Wonder suggests to us that animals matter directly, for their own sake—not because of some similarity they have to ourselves,” she writes. What she opposes is not speciesism but its cousin, anthropocentrism, a world view that puts humans at the center, and values animals only to the extent that we decide that “they are (almost) like us.” To her, Singer’s view, with its focus on suffering, misses much of what makes animal life meaningful—meaningful, that is, to the animals themselves. Nussbaum is known for developing, with the economist and philosopher Amartya Sen, a framework called the capabilities approach, which focusses on insuring that all people have the ability to thrive. Now she wants to adapt that approach to account for the different ways that nonhuman animals, too, “strive for flourishing,” and are frequently blocked. “We are all animals,” she writes, “thrown into this world together, striving to get the things we need, and often thwarted in the attempt.” Nussbaum is horrified by factory farming, deeply moved by the plight of whales, and cautiously optimistic about the future prospects of pets, which she refers to as “companion animals,” to remind us that they exist not merely to please their so-called owners but to flourish in their own ways.

What does flourishing entail? For humans, Nussbaum has developed a list of entitlements, which may seem suspiciously well matched to the interests of a humanities professor. (The list includes the ability to experience and produce “literary” and other works but not, explicitly, the ability to trade goods.) As for animals, the entitlements will depend on both the species and the individual. She suggests that we heed “experts who have lived closely with a certain type of animal and studied those animals over long periods of time”; working across national borders, those experts could help us draft “a legally enforceable constitution” for every kind of animal. Dolphins, for instance, would be granted the right to roam, to socialize, and to have as much or as little contact with humans as they choose. She holds that, because animals generally “seek maturity as a central goal,” killing the young is probably harder to justify than killing the old. And she writes that virtually all creatures under human control should be guaranteed “at least one or two chances at sex and reproduction.” This means that companion animals might permissibly be spayed or neutered, but only after they have had a chance to find some companionship for themselves.

But why care about the flourishing only of animals, and not of a coral reef, or an ocean, or a forest? Singer’s suffering test provides one answer. Nussbaum’s answer is complicated, and the more she explains it the closer she draws to the anthropocentrism she says she opposes. In one passage, she points out that a cat can be said to engage in the “active pursuit of ends.” Elsewhere, she notes that a plant “lacks the sort of situational flexibility that makes us conclude that fish are sentient creatures,” adding that “a plant is basically a cluster entity, a they , rather than an it .” It is not that the distinctions she makes are indefensible. On the contrary, they are eminently defensible, because they reflect the things (activity, flexibility, sentience, individuality) that we humans tend to value in one another, and therefore in the world around us. It is hard to imagine a more anthropocentric view than one that surveys the natural landscape and sees creditable strivers, surrounded by less consequential organisms and entities that don’t measure up in the striving department.

Speciesism is easier to renounce than it is to abandon, because most of us share a sense that human beings have rights and responsibilities that set us apart. “To speak of ‘animal rights’ is, in the end, as absurd as to speak of ‘animal duties,’ ” Matthew Scully wrote in National Review in 1993. He wanted to assure his readers that they could object to cruelty without endorsing any weird metaphysical claims. By the time he published “Dominion,” he was working as a speechwriter for President George W. Bush , for whom he helped coin the phrase “axis of evil,” and he was already rethinking his skepticism of “animal rights.” Observing that people seemed to have little trouble extending compassion for the weakest in their midst, at least in theory, Scully wondered why animals should be offered less. He defended pets, both the concept and the term. He remembered reading Singer’s book as a teen-ager and then scrutinizing his own beloved dog. “Try as I might, I could not discern in his furry face any desire at all for liberation,” Scully wrote. Indeed, he encouraged his readers to visit a factory farm, if they could, and consider the idea that the cattle confined there were “morally indistinguishable” from the animals they loved at home.

Scully took his title from the Book of Genesis , in which, shortly before His vegan commandment, God grants man “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” Scully wrote not necessarily as a Christian (in one early interview, he mentioned that he had never been a regular churchgoer) but as a thinker who took the Bible seriously, and who was sure that Biblical “dominion” meant taking gentle care of the natural world, rather than simply dominating it or, worse, emulating its cruellest attributes. Unlike Nussbaum, who endeavors to figure out what we are each striving for, Scully accepted the mysteriousness of life, suggesting that God made all creatures to “serve some purpose beyond our full knowing.” What he wanted for animals was not justice but mercy—a kind of gift, freely given by humans to animals. “There is no such thing as a right to mercy, not for the animals and not even for us,” he wrote.

This is a poignant formulation, but one that does not easily lend itself to a program of social reform. And so “Fear Factories” chronicles how, in the years since “Dominion,” Scully has grown increasingly comfortable advocating for the “rights” of animals, as a way of insisting that how they are often treated is wrong, in ways that demand government intervention. In 1868, the editors of Our Dumb Animals boasted that their board included “Roman Catholics and Protestants, Democrats and Republicans, License men and Prohibitory men.” Scully, by contrast, has found allies virtually nowhere: few politicians in either party seem eager to crack down on so-called “canned” hunting—in which the quarry has essentially no chance to escape—or to tighten regulations on hog farming. When, in 2000, he told the strategist Karl Rove that the Republican Party’s platform might add a line about animal cruelty, Rove’s response did not rise even to the level of noncommittal. “Hey, man, at least you’re thinking outside the box,” Rove apparently said. “I like that!” And though Scully defends his having worked with Governor Sarah Palin , who backed a government-supported program of aerial wolf hunting, he admits, “The pile of moose and deer antlers on the campaign plane, gifts bestowed on the candidate at every rural stop, did get to be a little much.”

Scully, in fact, has something important in common with Palin: like many of his fellow-Republicans, and vanishingly few animal-rights activists, he is firmly opposed to abortion. This sets him apart from Nussbaum, who has argued that “access to abortion” is an essential component of “human dignity.” And it sets him farther apart still from Singer, who has questioned whether even newborn infants have “an inherent right to life.” Scully can’t help but see parallels between factory farming and abortion. “Both industries are blunt, practical solutions to hard moral problems that the people who advocate them have despaired of dealing with in some gentler way,” he writes. “I have never heard a single compelling argument for why the unborn must die or why the animals must suffer.” Of course, there is a powerful movement in America to ban abortion, and no similarly robust effort to ban meat. When the pro-life and the animal-rights causes seem to be, in many ways, natural allies, why do they continue to belong to such separate worlds? It is certainly possible to oppose abortion while also opposing, on feminist or prudential grounds, efforts to force all pregnant women to give birth. But it’s strange that the people most concerned about the fate of human blastocysts take little interest in the fate of cattle or chimpanzees, and that the people who think carefully about the nervous systems of crabs take little interest in the nervous system of a human fetus. Often, the overlap occurs strictly at the level of rhetoric. “Voice of the Voiceless,” the title of a 1992 compilation of mainly vegan straight-edge bands which raised money for the Animal Liberation Front, is also a phrase used by pro-life advocates, who are equally convinced that they are expanding the circle of human compassion.

There is something unsettling about the animal-rights argument, which is partly a matter of scale: the dizzying numbers involved can make it hard to know where to start, or stop. The use and abuse of animals is tightly woven into our world, which is why people who think seriously about it so often end up calling for broad changes that might seem unwise or even indefensible—at least, at first. My own years of veganism ended gradually, as my social surroundings changed, and I found myself wanting to be less of an outlier. I returned to cheese, and then fish, and then meat, having convinced myself that killing an animal is not necessarily an act of cruelty. I’m not eager to be at the leading edge of the vegan revolution, which may yet succeed, but neither would I wish to be at the tail end of the meat-eating resistance. And I am sympathetic to the frustration of advocates who can’t figure out why, nearly half a century after “Animal Liberation,” cattle are still sailing the world knee-deep in shit. A weekend with the work of Singer, Nussbaum, or Scully will likely make your next trip to the supermarket significantly more uncomfortable, and probably that’s as it should be. But these advocates also, in different ways, remind us that important causes have a way of redrawing ideological lines, turning some of our opponents into allies, and some allies into opponents. It is not easy to think carefully and consistently about what we do to animals. If the people who try often end up endorsing proposals that make us recoil, this may say as much about us as about them. ♦

New Yorker Favorites

The day the dinosaurs died .

What if you started itching— and couldn’t stop ?

How a notorious gangster was exposed by his own sister .

Woodstock was overrated .

Diana Nyad’s hundred-and-eleven-mile swim .

Photo Booth: Deana Lawson’s hyper-staged portraits of Black love .

Fiction by Roald Dahl: “The Landlady”

Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker .

Books & Fiction

By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

By Molly Fischer

By Kathryn Schulz

By Zadie Smith

By Benjamin Wallace-Wells

Speech on Animal Rights

Animal rights are a crucial matter, touching on the ethical treatment of creatures who share our world. You may have heard about it, but do you really know what it entails?

It’s not just about pets, but every creature big and small. Think about this: shouldn’t all animals deserve respect and protection, just like humans?

1-minute Speech on Animal Rights

Good day, everyone! Today, I want to talk about something very important: animal rights.

Animals, like us, have a heart that beats and a life that matters. They feel joy, sadness, and pain, just as we do. So, it’s only right that we treat them with kindness and respect. This is the core idea of animal rights.

Think about your pet dog or cat. You love them, right? You feed them, play with them, and make sure they are happy and safe. This is how we should treat all animals, not just our pets. It’s wrong to hurt them, lock them up, or make them live in bad conditions.

Now, some people might say, “But animals are not like humans. They don’t think or talk like we do.” That’s true, but it doesn’t mean they don’t deserve respect. Just because they are different from us, doesn’t mean we can treat them badly.

Animals are also important for our world. They help keep nature balanced. For example, bees help flowers grow by carrying pollen. Birds eat insects that can harm our crops. So, when we protect animals, we also protect our planet.

In conclusion, animal rights are about treating animals with kindness and respect. We should not hurt them or make them suffer. Instead, we should protect them, just as we would want to be protected. Remember, every life matters, whether it’s big or small, human or animal. Let’s respect all life and make our world a better place. Thank you.

Also check:

• Essay on Animal Rights

2-minute Speech on Animal Rights

Good day, everyone. Today, we talk about a topic that is close to our hearts – animal rights. Animals, just like us, are living beings. They feel joy, they know pain, and they too, need love. And just like us, they also deserve the right to live a life free from harm and suffering.

Let’s think about our pets – our dogs, cats, or even the birds in our backyard. We care for them, feed them, and protect them. We feel sad when they are hurt and happy when they are well. This is because we understand that they have feelings. They can feel happy, sad, scared, or excited. This shows us that animals are not just things, but beings with emotions, just like us.

Now, imagine if someone were to hurt our pets. We would feel angry, right? We wouldn’t like it. This is because we believe that our pets have rights. They have the right to be safe, to be loved, and to be free from pain. This is what we mean by animal rights. It means that all animals, not just our pets, have the right to live a life free from harm, pain, and suffering.

Sadly, not all animals are treated this way. Many animals are hurt and abused every day. They are used for testing in labs, they are hunted for sport, and they are kept in bad conditions in some zoos and farms. This is not fair to them. They deserve better. They deserve to live a life that is free from harm and suffering.

So, what can we do? We can start by treating all animals with kindness and respect. We can choose not to use products that are tested on animals. We can speak up for animals who are being treated badly. We can also support laws that protect animals from harm and abuse.

Remember, animals cannot speak for themselves. They cannot tell us when they are hurt or scared. It is up to us to be their voice. It is up to us to make sure that they are treated with kindness and respect.

In conclusion, animal rights are about treating all animals with the love and respect they deserve. It is about making sure that they are free from harm and suffering. It is about being their voice and standing up for them. Because just like us, animals have feelings. Just like us, they deserve to live a life that is free from harm and suffering.

Thank you for listening, and remember, every act of kindness towards animals, no matter how small, can make a big difference. Let’s be the change we want to see in the world. Let’s stand up for animal rights.

• Speech on Animal Cruelty
• Speech on Animal Abuse
• Speech on Anger Management

We also have speeches on more interesting topics that you may want to explore.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Animal Rights Persuasive Essay Sample, with Outline

Published by gudwriter on November 23, 2017 November 23, 2017

Animal Rights Essay

Animals have a right to be free of human use and exploitation. They have an inherent worth and moral rights that should be respected. To have the best grades on such kind of essays, essay writing services for MBA will write them for you.

Elevate Your Writing with Our Free Writing Tools!

Did you know that we provide a free essay and speech generator, plagiarism checker, summarizer, paraphraser, and other writing tools for free?

Animal Rights Essay Outline

Introduction.

Thesis: People should consider giving animals the same rights as human beings because they deserve it.

Paragraph 1:

Animals should be granted the same rights as humans first because just like humans, they have the capacity to suffer.

• They feel motherly love, loneliness, frustration, fear, and pleasure depending on the situation they find themselves in.
• It should be the moral obligation of humans to take this fact into account whenever they consider undertaking actions that would interfere with the needs of animals.

Paragraph 2:

Human beings should also consider that animals have an inherent worth which in itself is completely separate from the usefulness of animals to humans.

• Being living beings capable of moving, all animals have the right to life and therefore have every right not to be subjected to any kinds of pain.
• It is wrong on the part of humans to presume that the sole reason for the existence of nonhuman animals is for them to be used by humans.

Paragraph 3:

Another consideration that humans should make is that their infringement of animal rights is based on prejudice that they can easily put an end to.

• Only prejudice pushes a person into denying another person the rights that they expect to have for themselves.
• Prejudice is morally unacceptable whether it is based on species, sexual orientation, gender, or race.

Paragraph 4:

There is no any morally relevant difference between human beings and non-human animals.

• If humans are entitled to their rights, it is only fair that animals too are allowed to enjoy their own rights.
• It makes no sense when human animals are granted their rights but non-human ones are denied theirs.

Paragraph 5:

Animals have a culture to preserve and thus killing or caging them amounts to an erosion of this culture.

• All species suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
• Not justifiable to subject another species to an experience one would not wish for themselves.

Paragraph 6:

It is the belief of some people that because animals are not humans, they should not have the same rights as humans.

• However, it should be noted that adult mammals and human animals have no morally relevant difference between them.
• They are both animals and they deserve to be treated the same.

It is true that animals are not human beings and that is not up for debate. However, they deserve to have the rights granted to humans because they suffer like humans. They have an inherent worth given that they are animals like humans save for the difference in their species.

Animals Should Have the Same Rights as Humans

Human beings continue to go to zoos and circuses, wearing leather, and eating meat; activities all of which involve either caging or killing of animals. Animals are also kept as pets by humans and this involves the selling of animals and constructing cages for them so they may not escape. Noteworthy, all these actions have to do with the infringement of animal rights in one way or another. It is however interesting that humans never consider the impacts that these actions have on animals presumably because animals, to them, have no rights. This disregard for animal rights has even attracted court cases some of which sought to have animals viewed as persons just as humans. People should consider giving animals the same rights as human beings because they deserve it.

At the same time Gudwriter’s also provides essay on argumentative essay on animal rights with examples.

Animals should be granted the same rights as humans first because just like humans, they have the capacity to suffer. They feel motherly love, loneliness, frustration, fear, and pleasure depending on the situation they find themselves in. As such, it should be the moral obligation of human beings to take this fact into account whenever they consider undertaking actions that would interfere with the needs of animals. As pointed out by Bennett-Jones (2015), “Factors to consider would include the degree of an animal’s autonomy, sensitivity to pain, level of sentience, self-awareness and ability to hold preferences.” It is well deserving for animals to lead their lives free from being exploited or being subjected to sufferings. As a matter of fact, when deciding on the rights of any being, the question should be whether they can suffer and not whether they can talk or reason.

Human beings should also consider that animals have an inherent worth which in itself is completely separate from their usefulness to humans. Being living beings capable of moving, all animals have the right to life and therefore have every right not to be subjected to any kind of pain. In this regard, it is wrong on the part of human beings to presume that the sole reason for the existence of nonhuman animals is for them to be used by humans. Animals attach immense value to their lives just like humans do, and rightly so. This is why they will always try to evade danger either by defending themselves or running away from sources of danger ( Smith, 2012 ). It is also why they go about looking for food to fend for themselves and their young ones, much like humans.

Further, there is no any morally relevant difference between human beings and non-human animals. If humans are entitled to their rights, it is only fair that animals too are allowed to enjoy their own rights. It makes no sense when human animals are granted their rights but non-human ones are denied theirs. Moreover, being ‘subject-of-a-life,’ both the human and non-human animal species have many attributes in common. They are for instance alive to the fact that they live (“Animal Rights,” 2014). There is thus no justification whatsoever why animals should be denied the rights they deserve. This point leaves human beings with no valid reason to continue trampling upon the rights of non-human animals.

Another consideration that humans should make is that their infringement of animal rights is based on prejudice that they can easily put an end to. As it is, only prejudice pushes a person into denying another person the rights that they expect to have for themselves. As noted by Smith (2012), prejudice is morally unacceptable whether it is based on species, sexual orientation, gender, or race. If humans would not eat a dog for instance, why should they eat goats? The capacity to feel pain is inherent in both dogs and goats. However, out of prejudice, humans consider one as food and the other as a companion.

Further, animals have a culture to preserve and thus killing or caging them amounts to an erosion of this culture. Just like humans, “Elephants that have witnessed the slaughter of their parents by poaching or culling and lost the support of their extended family group exhibit the same erratic and often detached behaviors…” (Siebert, 2014). Their fate resembles that of orphans of war who after losing their families and witnessing the destruction of their villages, remain to wallow in miser. In other words, all species suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Why subject another species to an experience you would not wish for yourself?

It is the belief of some people that because animals are not humans, they should not have the same rights as humans. However, as already seen, adult mammals and human animals have no morally relevant difference between them ( Cavalieri, 2003 ). They are both animals and they deserve to be treated the same. No matter how humanely animals may be treated, killing, confining, breeding, buying, and selling them invade into their rights. It is unjust to subject one species to sufferance while fighting for the rights of another species yet morally; they both deserve respect and freedom. It is thus dishonest to assume that humans can do whatever they like with animals.

It is true that animals are not human beings and that is not up for debate. However, they deserve to have the rights granted to humans because they suffer like humans. They have an inherent worth given that they are animals like humans save for the difference in their species. They have the will to organize their life according to their culture which is unfortunately interfered with by humans. It amounts to prejudice to subject them to untold sufferings in the name of being turned into food or being kept in cages for whatever purposes. In this respect, it is high time humans considered championing for animals to have the same rights as humans.

Animal Rights. (2014). In BBC . Retrieved July 10, 2020 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/rights/rights_1.shtml

Bennett-Jones, O. (2015). Should animals be given human rights? . BBC News . Retrieved 22 November 2017, from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-32854504

Cavalieri, P. (2003). The Animal Question: Why Nonhuman Animals Deserve Human Rights . Cary, NC: Oxford University Press, USA.

Siebert, C. (2014). Should Animals Have The Same Rights As People? . Popular Science . Retrieved 22 November 2017, from https://www.popsci.com/should-animals-same-rights-people

Smith, W. J. (2012). A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy: The Human Cost of the Animal Rights Movement . New York City, NY: Encounter Books.

Special offer! Get 20% discount on your first order. Promo code: SAVE20

Related Posts

Free essays and research papers, artificial intelligence argumentative essay – with outline.

Artificial Intelligence Argumentative Essay Outline In recent years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become one of the rapidly developing fields and as its capabilities continue to expand, its potential impact on society has become a topic Read more…

Synthesis Essay Example – With Outline

The goal of a synthesis paper is to show that you can handle in-depth research, dissect complex ideas, and present the arguments. Most college or university students have a hard time writing a synthesis essay, Read more…

Examples of Spatial Order – With Outline

A spatial order is an organizational style that helps in the presentation of ideas or things as is in their locations. Most students struggle to understand the meaning of spatial order in writing and have Read more…

• Website Inauguration Function.
• Vocational Placement Cell Inauguration
• Media Coverage.
• Certificate & Recommendations
• Privacy Policy
• Science Project Metric
• Social Studies 8 Class
• Computer Fundamentals
• Introduction to C++
• Programming Methodology
• Programming in C++
• Data structures
• Boolean Algebra
• Object Oriented Concepts
• Database Management Systems
• Open Source Software
• Operating System
• PHP Tutorials
• Earth Science
• Physical Science
• Sets & Functions
• Coordinate Geometry
• Mathematical Reasoning
• Statics and Probability
• Accountancy
• Business Studies
• Political Science
• English (Sr. Secondary)

Hindi (Sr. Secondary)

• Punjab (Sr. Secondary)
• Accountancy and Auditing
• Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Technology
• Automobile Technology
• Electrical Technology
• Electronics Technology
• Hotel Management and Catering Technology
• IT Application
• Marketing and Salesmanship
• Office Secretaryship
• Stenography
• Hindi Essays
• English Essays

Letter Writing

• Shorthand Dictation

Essay on “Animals too have rights” Complete Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Animals too have rights

POINTS TO DEVELOP

Importance of animal rights,

Humans have overridden everything to satisfy their own needs.

Evolution of humans’ relationship with animals.

Importance of animals in the ecological Context

Humans callously snatch away the rights of animals though ‘human rights’ are considered all important.

Refusal to recognize animal rights can be disastrous  

To some people, the suggestion of rights for animals might sound too petty to be considered an issue worth pondering over. To such people it would be worth considering only if it was vested with human interests and gains. The subject of rights for animals gains impetus . from the present imbalanced ecological system-a system which ought to be a shared habitat of humans and animals alike, but which, unfortunately, has been crippled largely due to human maneuvering.

The human being evolved as a species from the animal form to develop into the most intelligent creatures in nature’s cycle. The potential to develop perceptive skills, ability to record and register things, ability to communicate in a verbal language enabled the man to surpass the other animals. Alongside developed the desire to acquire the supreme position, the desire to gain command over all things. Consequently, humans have overridden everything to satisfy their luxurious needs.

Pre-historic times were marked by an interdependent relationship between humans and animals. Food and later clothing were the chief requirements of humans for which he was completely dependent on animals. An animal, besides being the provider of food, clothing and a means of transport, was very often a companion to humans. The gradual progress of humankind in various fields relegated animals as adjuncts to the human race. Cultivation and development of mechanized modes of transportation almost limited the importance of animals to human existence. Though modernization did not completely break the bonds between animals and humans, it somehow made humans indifferent to animals. This indifferent attitude worsened with time, with hardly any consideration for animals’ rights.

Yes, animals too have rights. And this needs to be realized especially in the light of the fact that human existence is a part and parcel of nature, which is the ultimate controlling force. Humans may have gained independence to support themselves but ecology still demands a harmonious relation between the animal kingdom and human existence to sustain its balance.

Unlike humans, whose rights are constitutionally defined and registered in written form, animals enjoy no such provisions. Just as humans, animals too have the right to a free existence, right not to be killed, right to natural habitat and right to be protected against extinction. Unfortunately, however, all these rights have been grossly violated by humans.

The treatment meted out to animals raises concerns over their posterity. Their plight is evident in the way man uses them for his own interests. Animals are subjected to painful medical and technological research experiments in an attempt to create better species, to make animal yields to maximal levels in minimal time through medication. Poaching of animals for their body parts is another example I of human selfishness. What is most tragic is the fact that animals have to bear the brunt of problems triggered by humans-population explosion in the wake of medical and technological advances, food shortage, deforestation, and environmental pollution.

These problems have resulted in the annexation of the basic necessities of animals crucial for their survival. Thus humans are robbing animals of their basic right of existence. Humans-the sole advocates of rights themselves-have become the violators.

The muteness of animals incapacitates them to advocate their rights. Nevertheless, they have over and again professed their rights through physical manifestations which have not escaped human attention. The example of tiger turning man-eater is a traditional example of the result of man’s excessive interference with the laws of nature. The gravity of the situation can be estimated by the fact that even herbivores like elephants have developed man-eating tendencies. The encroachment of forest lands to accommodate the ever-increasing human race and growing urbanization has had disastrous consequences. Elephants require large amounts of vegetation to survive. Deforestation has left them with a marginal vegetation. This forces them to feed on human cultivated fields which creates strife between elephants and humans.

The Change in behavioural patterns such as nesting, migration, food habits are all exemplifications of the animals’ unease with their surroundings, altered largely due to humans.

Concern over the issue of animals’ rights began to be shown by few only when the disturbed ecological balance started posing a threat to human existence itself. It is the responsibility of the human race to respect the rights of animals, more so because humans are just animals blessed with reasoning powers. Their role is to modify nature for improvements, not rape it for personal gains. What best can be done by the human race as way of showing its respect for the rights of others is to stop greedy encroachment of nature.

About evirtualguru_ajaygour

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Quick Links

Popular Tags

Visitors question & answer.

• Md shoaib sarker on Short Story ” The Lion and The Mouse” Complete Story for Class 10, Class 12 and other classes.
• Bhavika on Essay on “A Model Village” Complete Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.
• slide on 10 Comprehension Passages Practice examples with Question and Answers for Class 9, 10, 12 and Bachelors Classes
• अभिषेक राय on Hindi Essay on “Yadi mein Shikshak Hota” , ”यदि मैं शिक्षक होता” Complete Hindi Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Download Our Educational Android Apps

Latest Desk

• Samkaleen Bhartiya Mahilaye  “समकालीन भारतीय महिलाएं” Hindi Essay, Nibandh 1000 Words for Class 10, 12 Students.
• Nijikarn – Gun evm Dosh  “निजीकरण: गुण एवं दोष” Hindi Essay, Nibandh 1200 Words for Class 10, 12 Students.
• Bharat mein Mahilaon ke Rajnitik Adhikar  “भारत में महिलाओं के राजनीतिक अधिकार” Hindi Essay, Nibandh 700 Words for Class 10, 12 Students.
• Bharat mein Jativad aur Chunavi Rajniti “भारत में जातिवाद और चुनावी राजनीति” Hindi Essay, Nibandh 1000 Words for Class 10, 12 Students.
• Example Letter regarding election victory.
• Example Letter regarding the award of a Ph.D.
• Example Letter regarding the birth of a child.
• Example Letter regarding going abroad.
• Letter regarding the publishing of a Novel.

Vocational Edu.

• English Shorthand Dictation “East and Dwellings” 80 and 100 wpm Legal Matters Dictation 500 Words with Outlines.
• English Shorthand Dictation “Haryana General Sales Tax Act” 80 and 100 wpm Legal Matters Dictation 500 Words with Outlines meaning.
• English Shorthand Dictation “Deal with Export of Goods” 80 and 100 wpm Legal Matters Dictation 500 Words with Outlines meaning.
• English Shorthand Dictation “Interpreting a State Law” 80 and 100 wpm Legal Matters Dictation 500 Words with Outlines meaning.

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Guest Essay

Doctors Need a Better Way to Treat Patients Without Their Consent

By Sandeep Jauhar

Dr. Jauhar is a cardiologist in New York who writes frequently about medical care and public health.

Not long ago, I took care of a middle-aged man at my hospital who had severe heart failure requiring life support. When he was disconnected from machines after a few days of treatment, he began to display psychotic symptoms, including delusional thinking, tangential speech and paranoia. He had a long history of untreated schizophrenia, I learned, which had estranged him from family members and friends, with whom he had virtually no contact.

My patient demanded to leave the hospital. However, sending him home was going to be a problem. He could not take care of himself. There was little chance he would take his medications, including a blood thinner to dissolve a clot in his heart before it caused a stroke. He was even less likely to take psychiatric drugs that he did not believe he needed.

My colleagues and I didn’t know what to do, so we called the treating psychiatrist. The psychiatrist immediately declared that our patient lacked the capacity to discharge himself from the hospital. The patient could not grasp the implications of this choice, for instance, or properly weigh its risks and benefits. The psychiatrist said the patient should remain in the hospital to receive psychiatric treatment, even against his will.

The psychiatrist’s opinion made sense to me. Patients with untreated schizophrenia have a higher rate of death than those who undergo treatment. Hopefully treatment would restore my patient’s judgment to the point where he would take his medications when he went home — or even decide not to take them, but to make that risky decision in the full appreciation of the likely consequences. (If autonomy means anything, it means that patients have the right to make bad decisions, too.) Treating him, even over his objections, seemed to be in his best interests.

However, according to New York law — and the law of other states — such involuntary treatment would require a court order. As doctors, we would have to plead our case before a judge. But was a judge without medical or psychiatric expertise the best person to decide this man’s fate?

In this case and also more generally, I think the answer is no. The law ought to be changed to keep such decisions in hospitals — in the hands of doctors, medical ethicists and other relevant experts.

Doctors don’t always have to resort to the courts to treat patients without their consent. There are some notable exceptions, such as during a life-threatening emergency (if a competent patient has not previously refused such treatment) or when there is a pressing societal interest (such as requiring patients with communicable tuberculosis to take antibiotics).

But judicial review has been the cornerstone of “treatment over objection,” as it’s known, for the past four decades or so. Appellate courts in the 1980s ruled that judicial hearings in such cases are needed to safeguard patients’ rights. For example, in 1983, in Rogers v. Commissioner of Department of Mental Health, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declared that a judge could override medical judgments favoring involuntary psychiatric treatment.

The underlying motivation behind judicial review was and remains laudable: to avoid the sort of paternalistic abuses that have characterized too much of medical history. Doctors often used to withhold bad news from patients, to cite just a small example. Involuntary treatment, even with benevolent intentions, reeks of such paternalism.

But though medical practice is by no means perfect, times have changed. The sort of abuse dramatized in the 1975 movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” with its harrowing depiction of forced electroconvulsive therapy, is far less common. Doctors today are trained in shared decision-making. Safeguards are now in place to prevent such maltreatment, including multidisciplinary teams in which nurses, social workers and bioethicists have a voice.

In addition to being less necessary to prevent abuse than they once were, courts are by nature poorly suited for making decisions about treatment over objection. For one thing, they are slow: Having to go to court often results in delays, sometimes up to a week or more, which can harm patients who need care urgently.

Moreover, judges have neither the experience nor the expertise to properly evaluate psychological states, assess decision-making capacity or determine whether a proposed treatment’s benefits outweigh its risks. It is no surprise that by some estimates 95 percent or more of requests for treatment over objection are approved by judges, who invariably haven’t met the patient and must rely on information provided by the treating medical team.

A better system for determining whether a patient should be treated over his or her objection would be a hospital hearing in which a committee of doctors, ethicists and other relevant experts — all of whom would be independent of the hospital and not involved in the care of the patient — engaged in conversation with the medical team and the patient and patient’s family. Having hearings on site would expedite decisions and minimize treatment delays. The committee would make the final decision.

Of course, such a committee would have to be granted immunity from legal liability (as with judges in our current system), so that experts would be willing to serve and speak candidly. Patients’ interests could be safeguarded by requiring the committee to publish its reasoning. Periodic audits by a regulatory body could ensure that the committee’s deliberations were meeting medical and ethical standards.

In the event that the committee could not reach a consensus on the best course of action (or if there were allegations of wrongdoing), then the parties involved could appeal to a judge. But that would be the exception rather than the rule.

In the case of my patient with heart failure, the decision ultimately didn’t have to go before a judge. Multiple discussions involving the patient, the hospital ethics and palliative care teams, social workers, nurses, psychiatrists and other doctors — discussions that in many respects served the function of a formal committee of the sort I’m proposing — yielded an agreement with the patient that his interests would be best served by sending him home with hospice care.

Capacity must be judged relative to the decision being made, and it became clear over the course of hospitalization that our patient understood the terminal nature of his condition and had the capacity to choose hospice care. Forced treatment was unlikely to significantly improve his psychiatric symptoms before the natural progression of heart failure caused his death.

So he was discharged home. It was the best decision under the circumstances, one reached by expert deliberation, not legal procedure. He passed away a few weeks later without, fortunately, ever setting foot in court.

Sandeep Jauhar ( @sjauhar ) is a doctor at Northwell Health in New York and the author, most recently, of “ My Father’s Brain : Life in the Shadow of Alzheimer’s.”

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .