Animal Rights Debate

Inside a small aluminum shed and through a cramped doorway was a steel-mesh cage. The room was filled with a rotten stench and bits of plastic toys, bits of torn bedding. Inside the cage, illuminated only by light from a cheap, flickering, portable TV was a chimpanzee named Tommy. Tommy, an adult male in his 20’s, had first belonged to Dave Sabo, a proprietor of a troupe of performing circus monkeys. However, Sabo had recently died, and Tommy was left to this dungeon. Tommy, a highly intelligent animal, was trapped in a world without fresh air and only a pitiful jungle gym on which to stretch his limbs. This was the horrific scene animal rights lawyer Steven Wise stumbled upon in Gloversville, NY on October 10th, 2013. However, Tommy’s fate was soon reversed, after he became the first nonhuman primate to ever sue a human captor for his own freedom. (The Rights of Man and Beast)

At the dawn of civilization, man deemed itself superior to all other life forms. Man was self-aware and self-determined. Man could build and use tools, create languages. Man grieved, empathized, and understood the concept of time. So, logically, man topped the food chain and epitomized the success of evolution. Animals were simply reduced to poor,

Children who grow up influenced by animal abuse are at a far greater risk of becoming abusers themselves because of the adverse psychological impacts. Regardless of whether animal abuse stems from curiosity, peer pressure, or inner turmoil, in any form, it is dangerous and not to be taken lightly. As (The Link) put it, “recognizing that cruelty to animals is a significant form of aggressive and antisocial behavior may help further the understanding and prevention of violence." When the threat of animal abuse is dismissed as simply as the rights of animals are dismissed, the vicious cycle is fed more fuel and there is more violence as a result. (The