We believe it is a fair proposition that animals should have rights. Rights are a useful construct to protect attributes of an individual that might require defending. For example, a human has a right to live and a right to live free from torture - the reasons for this being that they do live, and that they would unduely suffer from being tortured. While an animal may not have the intellectual or physical abilities that most humans do, they do still live, and they can still suffer - so regardless of what other rights a human or animal might have, they both still require rights to respect this attribute of being alive and of being able to suffer. (Stay with me!)
So, in our opinion, all reasonable opposition to animal rights falls at this stage. Observe:
Animals are not as intelligent as humans - if this is a useful argument against the rights of animals, it also supports the idea of children and the mentally disabled having no rights of their own either - a position untenable by all but the fascists of our world. Similarly, if a more intelligent alien race were discovered, they would be well within their rights to use and abuse us however they wish. The attribute of rights in morality is primarily to protect those whose attributes need protection (the weakest) and not to protect the strong/'clever' at the expense of the weak/'stupid', or to protect the ruling class/species at the expense of the others.
Humans have always used animals - such an argument is only useful if it can be shown that things which have happened regularly for centuries are always good or moral behaviours. The instances of human slavery, sexist societies and capital punishment for minor crimes suggests this is not a good claim. If anything, these things from the past should show us that the whole of society can often support things that are in their very nature wrong, and immoral - in our time that big error in mainstream thought is the way we view and use animals.
Other animals kill, so we should/can too - an excellent point, so long as we allow each other to kill our young, maim even our minor enemies and devour our partners during intercourse! Of course some animals kill, they have no moral agency like we do, and often they have no other choice but to kill to live. This is not the case with humans. We have moral agency, and can choose not to kill other creatures/cause suffering for our own pleasures. Perhaps this claim would be stronger if it weren't the gentle vegetarian species like cows, pigs, chickens and sheep that we farm - the ones who do not kill. But either way the idea of farming lions as they eat meat and so deserve it is nothing short of 'moral vengeance' - and those are not two words that fit together! Unless of course you think the lion chose to be born as a lion, and so to have to kill to live?! I thought not...
We need animal products (like meat, eggs and dairy) to live healthily - this argument is perhaps the weakest of them all. A really good description of human nutrition, and how it is better satisfied with vegan diets, can be found on the following site: Vegan Nutrition
Animal Rights is all very well, but animal research is vital for effective human medicine/treatments - and humans must come first - once again, this is a sensible sounding opinion, however it is one of past years, and is no longer a relevant or accurate portrayal of the situation. A quick look at the Safer Medicines site will show that better options exist nowadays, and that animal research continues mainly out of tradition and habit - and it does so with a great inefficiency, and at the expense of human health ("You really have to design the medicine for the species of interest…You'll find it very rare to find a medicine that will work in both" Patrick M. O'Connor, head of oncology research for Pfizer quoted from the safer medicines site). But what if it were an effective method of developing medicines? Does it make sense that I should be able to test drugs on other individuals, against their will, so as to cure your disease? The moral case for vivisection, though mute in an era where animal testing should be outlawed purely on medical reasoning, is strong and in the same sort of completeness as the argument for the rest of animal rights - after all, it too rests on reason over habit.
If you have any other questions you would like to see approached on this site, please e-mail info@GrampianARA.org to let us know your suggestions, and you may well see your question answered on the site!
