For decades, animal rights activists have attempted to advocate the notion that animals, as with humans, have an implicit right to life. Such premise is reasonable and often easy to accept, especially where everyone that owns a pet knows the great sensation it is to get home after a stressful day at work and be received by your playing dog or cat. For many, it is easy to recognize that dogs and cats for example, are living and sustainable animals, and therefore, that all animals have the right to live. Unfortunately animals continue to be viewed in many circles as inferior creatures, and are often used in medical research where they are not granted any right including the right to live and their only destiny is to suffer to death. The purpose of this short-essay, is to evaluate, analyze, and assess whether or not animals have a recognized right to life, specifically within the context of biomedical research and testing.
According to many scientists and academics, any living organism can fall into the broad definition of animal, and any living organism has “a basic moral right to respectful treatment” (Dunnuck,para.2), therefore all animals have the basic moral right to a respectful treatment. For instance, the definition of animal comes from the Latin word animalis, meaning “having breath” so humans also fall into the category of animals (Cresswell). Animals that are used in research are not given any type of respectful treatment, so their most basic right is violated from the start. If humans have a right to choose to live a life without pain the same choice should be given to the animals that are used in research. Even though in the text it mentions that animals “cannot vocalize their own preferences and choices”(para.2...
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...e: Issues in Responsible Animal Experimentation. New York: Oxford UP, 1993.
2. Cresswell, Julia (2010). The Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins (2 ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.ISBN 9780199547937. "‘having the breath of life’, from anima ‘air, breath, life’
3. Paterson, Charles (2002) Treblinka, Eternal. Our treatment of animals and the Holocaust, Oxford Press.
4. Ryder, Richard (2005). All beings that feel pain deserve human rights: Equality of the species is the logical conclusion of post-Darwin morality. The Guardian. Aug. 6, 2005.
5. Skidelsky, Edward (2000). Nonsense upon stilts. Animals are the last great "victim class". Edward Skidelsky finds the arguments for animal rights sentimental, self-serving and intellectually unsound. New Statesman, June 5, 2000.
6. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Endangered Species Statistics, January 4, 2011.
Regan, Tom. “The Case for Animal Rights.” In Animal Rights and Human Obligations, 2 ed.. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1989.
In today’s day and age humans find themselves as being higher up in the hierarchy for decent reason. This leads to the issue of whether human beings are worth more than animals and animal suffering. While humans possess the moral capacity to understand moral thought, an issue rises with this. Does animal suffering, if we choose to assume that as moral agents human beings are obligated to include animal suffering in our choices such as Peter Singer speaks of in his essays on animal equality, become less important when used to progress science and perhaps human well-being? On the most basic thought processes most people would say yes because humans are more important than animals. Though looking deeper makes it harder to determine the morality
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In conclusion, I agree with Tom Regan’s perspective of the rights view, as it explores the concept of equality, and the concept of rightful treatment of animals and humans. If a being is capable of living, and experiencing life, then they are more than likely capable of feeling pleasure and pain, except in a few instances. If humans are still treated in a respectable and right way even if some cannot vote, or think for themselves, then it is only fair that animals who also lack in some of these abilities be treated as equals. As Regan puts it, “pain is pain, wherever it occurs” (1989).
Tom Regan, “The Case for Animal Rights,” in In Defense of Animals, ed. Peter Singer (Oxford:
As in any debate though there is always an opposing side, which seems to toss out their opinions and facts as frequently as the rest. So many in today’s world view animal research as morally wrong and believe animals do have rights. Peter Singer, an author and philosophy professor, “argues that because animals have nervous systems and can suffer just as much as humans can, it is wrong for humans to use animals for research, food, or clothing” (Singer 17). Do animals have any rights? Is animal experimentation ethical? These are questions many struggle with day in and day out in the ongoing battle surrounding the controversial topic of animal research and testing, known as vivisection.
Animals have held an important spot in many of our lives. Some people look at animals as companions and others see them as a means of experimental research and medical advancement. With the interest to gain knowledge, physicians have dissected animals. The ethics of animal testing have always been questioned because humans do not want to think of animals on the same level as humans. Incapable of our thinking and unable to speak, animals do not deserve to be tested on by products and be conducted in experiments for our scientific improvement. Experimentation on animals is cruel, unfair, and does not have enough beneficial results to consider it essential.
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However, it is the purpose of this essay to convince the reader otherwise. The question at hand is: do animals deserve rights? It must certainly be true. Humans deserve rights and this claim is made on numerous appeals. Of one of the pertinent pleas is made on the claim that humans can feel emotions. More importantly, that humans are capable of suffering, and that to inflict such pain is unethical. Those who observe the tortures of the Nazi Concentration Camp are instilled with a humane creed held for all humans. But if there is no significant gulf between humans, that is to say there is no gulf based on skin color, creed, or gender that will make one human more or less valuable than any other, then by what right can a gulf be drawn out between humans and our fellow creatures? The suffering of humans is why we sympathize with each other. Since animals suffer, they deserve our sympathy.