Why Should I Care About Animal Rights?
15 November 2008
by Anai Rhoads
AnaiRhoads.org -- From the dawn of time, animals have been used to assist in farming and other tasks that were too herculean for man to do alone. These wonderful and powerful sentient beings were of great use in those times, but animal abuse wasn't foreign back then and it continues to present to this day.
Consider a comparison for a moment, between the Holocaust, slavery and animal suffering. Very uneasy topics for most, but they are very much related.
As we know, during the Holocaust millions of people were wrongfully imprisoned, tortured, displaced or killed in concentration camps. Our history books can never adequately describe their torment. As I write this, billions of animals are in the same predicament. Without an ounce of respect, animals from the livestock you get your food from to the pet you have in your home are being abused or have felt the suffering of separation from their loved ones at one point or another.
The puppy you want so much is missing his mother, and his mother is mourning the baby's removal from her side. In many cases, the mother simply continues to produce litters to satisfy her owner's need for more money. Of course, you will say, “but I know of many good breeders that would never do this – they care for their animals.” Not so, in fact if they cared for their animals – they wouldn't breed them to only bring upon the pain of separating their families. Remember bringing home your puppy and how you were distressed when the puppy whined all night? The puppy isn't whining for you – it is whining for its mother and siblings. This is the same pain a breeder is inflicting when all the while she may even have children of her own and would never condone someone taking them.
There are countless examples of animals that have a natural life-long bond with their families. The most well known is the elephant, which can recognise its family members and friends decades after being removed from them. The seahorses that mate for life and how the pregnant male will cling to an object and wait until his partner returns – and remain there until she does. She sometimes does not return, so he painfully dies there in wait.
It sounds painful enough to think of where most of our “commercial” pets come from. Livestock exhibit the same reactions when their offspring are carted off to slaughter, as do the offspring when they witness their mothers and fathers struggling in fear as they know what is about to happen to them.
Consider taking a trip to a factory farm and you will understand why slavery has a lot in common with the animals there. Rows and rows of crated animals. From the cows that stand at the rape rack to be inseminated over and over to the cows that are hooked up to machines for hours to be milked. The pigs that are confined in cramped sections where they give birth to the next meal that lands on your table. The chickens that lay upon dead and diseased chickens. The filth, the quiet desperation, the anxiety that only leads to the panic of their slaughter. Slavery is the ownership of a living thing. There is a broad misconception that enslavement only applies to human beings.
Circuses also fall into the category of slavery. There you are enjoying an afternoon with your children as you watch animals perform amazing stunts. How amusing and entertaining these manoeuvres are you wonder. You think you are giving your child an opportunity to see live animals in practical animation – bringing their young imaginations to life. Children adore all animals and their aim is to see them and touch them, understand them. In reality, the animals you see in those travelling circuses are beaten and abused. Many documented cases show that the abuse if often so severe that the animal gives up its will to live or simply beaten to the point where they simply die.
So why write something that has been written so many times over? Its intention is not to reach an audience that is Vegan, it is in the hope that you, the mothers and fathers, everyone – re-evaluate your decision to go to the circus, to buy any pet from any store and to make the effort to understand where your food actually comes from. All of the examples listed above are worthy of attention and your voice.
We, as humans, value our existence. There are prisons allotted for crimes committed. We know that killing another human being has dire consequences. Despite this knowledge, we fail to empathise with other living beings. Many take liberty over their animals and assume it is God's will that they govern them as they please. This is not rightfully so and those who have read even the first pages of the Bible know that we were given the green of the earth as our "meat."
When you hear an animal rights person cry out against you when you are draped in fur or when you are openly eating meat, you may find them judgemental or even in some cases extreme in their views. If you knew something, anything, and felt strongly against it, would you speak up too? Maybe vegans and vegetarians simply know something you don't?
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