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Supporting the Animal Rights Movement
Recognizing that non-human animals are living sentient beings/creatures with interest of their own and not objects of human expoitation.
Animal Rights means that non-human animals interests should be respected (what means that the enslaving, eating, wearing and torturing of non-human animals by humans should stop).
The animal liberation movement, therefore, is not saying that all lives are of equal worth or that all interests of humans and other animals are to be given equal weight, no matter what those interests may be. It is qaying that where animals and humans have similar interests - we might take the interest in avoiding physical pain as an example, for it is an interest that humans clearly share with other animals - those interests are to be counted equally, with no automatic discount just because one of the beings is not human. A simple point, no doubt, but nevertheless part of a far-reaching ethical revolution.Peter Singer - In defence of animals
Unlike humans, animals lack an understanding of morality (that is, to the same degree; dogs and cats can clearly love, elephants have been filmed digging other drowning elephants out of swamps, even on big cat diary you could see a leapord carefully pulling a painful thorne out of a siblings nose; Do not assume they are totally void of empathy). Along with this they also lack a capacity for malice which humans have. In these ways they are very comparable to children and many mentally disabled humans. They are simply innocent but what they dont lack is an ability to experience extreme fear and horendous pain, or the very strong will to live. We have no reason to believe they experience any of these features to any less extent than humans do. It is wrong to hurt children. is this really because they have the capacity to develop into a caring being or simply because causing an innocent child to suffer is hideous? and what about many mentally disabled people...
I do not think there is a general animal rights declaration that eating meat is unnatural. Having said that, farming animals and cooking meat is clearly unnatural. The fact that eating meat is natural, is often offered as justification. But driving a car is not natural whilst rape and murder are perfectly natural. It is not fair to suddenly claim that something is natural when it suits you, and that is why it is still wrong. People, what with their morality, have a choice. You can eat a vegetarian meal, or you can take the existence away from an animal that wants to live as desperately as you do. Meat becomes a selfish choice which we should evolve past. If you are talking about a need for people to be omniverous in order to gain the neccessary sustinance then think twice. Vegetarians live longer on average, Vegans longer still, and medical doctors fully accept that all required and reccomended sustinance can be gained through a veg*n diet.
A major part of the animal rights arguement is that animal research is ineffective. But i will focus solely on the moral arguement. It is wrong to conduct painful and or fatal research on an innocent animal which does not even understand why it is being harmed for the benefit of many human lives. Even if we do not dispute that a human life is more important than an animal's then this point remains strong. It is indisputable that the same testing on human subjects would yield far more reliable and effective results than tests on animals. So what is more important; 50 children or 10,000 children? - 10,000 children must be more important. then would you justify the abduction of 50 children - healthy? dissabled? orphan? foreign? anything - and then for meerly fatal, let alone horifically painful and traumatic research to be carried out upon those children against their will, in order to gain, from those 50 children, new cures which could treat thousands or millions of people? Right and wrong is hard to define. But you know the difference.
Pilgrim - In a discussion at Animal Rights Community Online
An action thriller that will reveal the true nature of irresponsible factory farm mega-corporations. The illusion is about to end. Created by Free Range Graphics (www.freerangegraphics.com)
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