FREE ESSAY ON ANIMAL RIGHTS

ANIMAL RIGHTS

Establishing and Upholding Animal Rights in the US
How often do we hear of people committing violent crimes against other people? It
sometime seems that we cannot turn on the television without being bombarded with reports
of violent crimes in our society. Yet, what the media usually neglects to cover are
violent crimes committed against animals.
In June, Jonathon Moore and George Allan Pettingill of Springfield, Arkansas were charged
with a criminal offense after reportedly hurling an 11-week old kitten out of the window
of a moving vehicle, killing the animal. While many people feel this case is
insignificant, animal rights activists point out that any person who is violent enough to
pitch a kitten out of a moving vehicle is a threat to both animals and humans. The
controversy generated by the conviction of these two men has lead to many questions
regarding animal rights; namely, "What are an animal's rights? What moral obligations do
we, as human beings, have in upholding these rights? How far are we, as a society,
willing to go to grant animals their rights?"
Many people feel that we cannot apply our society's idea of morality to animals because,
unlike humans, animals are unable to reason and cannot understand what rights are. They
point out that most animals used for food, fur, or experiments are bred for that specific
purpose, suggesting that humans have dominion over all animals. These people accept that
animals have certain interests, but some believe these interests can be sacrificed if
there are justifiable human benefits. This leads proponents of animal rights to ask,
"When are we justified in using animals to benefit humans and what, then, constitutes
animal abuse? "
From a pro-animal rights perspective, animal rights means that animals, like humans, have
interests that cannot be sacrificed to benefit others. They do not hold that an animal's
rights are absolute; like a human, an animal's rights must be limited. The main idea
activists wish to convey is that animals have the right to equal consideration of their
interests. 
Although opinions vary greatly on the matter of animal rights, should the government
intervene and establish that define and protect animal rights? Perhaps if the government
can successfully establish guidelines that clearly define what an animal's rights are and
the extent to which we are to protect these rights, we can alleviate the needless
suffering of animals in our society.