Opinion: Animals Have Rights

Over 56 billion farm animals are killed each year for food. Fish and other sea animals’ death toll is so great that the only measurement justifiable is tons.

More than 100 million animals, including dogs, cats, monkeys, birds, rats, mice, fish, pigs, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, and frogs are killed each year for laboratory testing. Moreover, more than 20,000 animals die in the entertainment business each year.

Animals have little to no rights. Allegedly, animals that lack capacity for free moral judgement have no rights. Though species such as chimpanzees are very intelligent and show self recognition, harmful tests are still performed on them, and some are still used for entertainment.

Laws state that slaughterhouses must have humane ways of killing the livestock. However, countless reports and evidence clearly show and state how the animals are actually being treated.

Many animals are tortured inadvertently before being killed. They would never know what freedom would feel like. most will never see the light of day. Cows are among the many animals that are often times hung upside down and cut in various places. This is all conducted on them while they are still alive.

Slaughterhouses are not the only form of violating animals’ natural rights. Many entertainment businesses force animals to do things, and they are punished if they do not obey. Chimpanzees, elephants, dogs, cats, horses, birds, monkeys, tigers, lions, and a plethora of other breeds of animals are subjected to the cruel ways of the entertainment business.

Organizations such as People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals (PETA) advertise some of the horrors animals face. Organizations such as these provide a way for information to be disseminated to the public to make change.

“I think that animals are subjected to harm because they don’t have a voice. If they could speak, I’m certain that the world would look at animals in a very different way,” sophomore Kyley Agostinelli said.

The intelligence of animals is also something that is rarely taken into consideration. Animals such as chickens are known to have communication skills relating to that of some primates. However, even though these intelligent creatures are now proven to be relatively smart and have complex bonding patterns, 17,000 of them are slaughtered per minute.

“Scientists at the University of Cambridge have found that the creatures have the brainpower to equal rodents, monkeys and, in some tests, even humans,” Scientific American said.