As science continues to climb the ladder of technology, we are beginning to understand the planets around us much more. It wouldn’t surprise me if soon enough, they start to send people to live on mars. Let’s suppose that a good couple thousand people actually do manage to build a civilization on mars and start to live out the rest of their lives there. What if there was another species that lived underground Mars that we weren’t aware of. This unknown species is much bigger, stronger and smarter than regular humans and worse of all—they don’t speak our language. Would you think that it’s okay for them to murder, then eat most of the humans and then enslave the rest of them for entertainment? Or would you rather them leave you be?
While you think of your answer, I’d like to remind you that animals probably ask themselves this question every day—“Why don’t the humans just leave us be?” The answer to the question, “Do animals have rights?” is an unfortunate no. But the answer to “Should animals have rights?” is a definite yes. Just because they are not as smart as we are, doesn’t mean that they are our property. Newborn babies are extremely stupid, but you don’t see people murdering and eating them now do you? It could even be said that animals actually do have rights that are determined and up-kept by them. But obviously this doesn’t mean much to humans.
Why do you have rights? To protect you, is it not? To protect you from suffering. If you did not have the capacity to suffer, rights would be useless to you. Therefore, anything sentient being that has the capacity to suffer, deserves rights in my opinion. Animals suffer, this is not news to anyone. Just as we are seeing a rise in depression amongst the masses of human beings, go to your local humane center, you will see animals also going through depression. I once knew of a dog who got beat up by her owner daily. After this dog was taken to a new home, she still had major trust issues and was extremely emotionally scarred—I could even agree that she displayed signs of anxiety.
“When it comes to pain, love, joy, loneliness, and fear, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. Each one values his or her life and fights the knife.”
~ Ingrid Newkirk
Animals deserve rights just as much as you and I do because they have a capacity to suffer. Why don’t they have rights then? This brings us back to the beginning of the article. Simply because there is this twisted way of thinking called being ‘prejudice’. No matter how much you think you aren’t prejudice, if you eat meat, you most certainly are. Why were blacks enslaved back in the day? Because the whites thought they were better than them. The whites were being prejudice. Enslaving and murdering animals is also prejudice, because we, as humans, think we are greater than animals. Just as much of the world was ignorant back in the times of slavery, much of the world still remains ignorant today. I’d like to think that we’ve gotten better, but at times I begin to think it’s gotten worse as most of it is just covered up these days.
This is not to say that we should grant them all sorts of rights and privileges. In fact, we shouldn’t have the power to “grant” them anything. I believe we should just leave them be, and let them live amongst themselves in designated areas—although we can disguise this as a “right” if we’d like to. Just as slavery eventually came to an end, I believe animals will soon be emancipated from their title as our ‘property’ one day as well.
Other articles you will find interesting:
The Meaning of Diwali
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