Throughout time, animals have played an important role in human society since civilization started. Back to the ancient times, those ancient people hunted animals for their own survival because during that time, most of them were living in the forest. They do not have much choice; the only way for them to survive is hunting animals in the jungle. Just imagine, if every ancient people have to rely on the forest by hunting animals to get their basic needs, how many animals have to be killed in one day in order to get themselves survive for few more days?
During ancient times, animals were being killed by people because of food purpose. People abuse the animals by hunting and eating them, thousands of animals were being killed every day just to serve as a food for others. But, until today, animals are being killed not just because of food purpose only, but humans wanted to hunt them because of earning money. This age, money has become the priority in modern society; people can sacrifice themselves to do anything as long as they can earn profit. So, by hunting animals had become one of the ways to earn income. The main purpose of hunting animals is to get their body parts to craft something that can be sold. Humans use their body parts skins to make clothes and handbags; bones for making shelters and tools and eventually for many others purposes like experimental purpose.
Should animals have rights? My answer for this question is that animals should be given rights such as, the freedom to see, smell, hear, taste and feel, right to be treated with care and respect and right to not be harmed or killed without any specific reason. Animals can almost be compared to humans because they do also have a heart; they able to walk and able to communicate like humans. Besides that, both people and animals also have their own responsibilities such as, they have to take care of their families and also search for shelters and foods to sustain their lives. Animals don’t necessarily kill humans for food, but humans killed them for food. This is really unfair to animals because they do not have the intention to hurt humans unless for their own self-defense purpose. In contrast, animals have their rights to protect themselves and their family members if they are being attacked by humans. Same goes to human, we will protect our own family members if something happens to them. So, if animals attack human for self-defense purpose, they are not wrong because they have their rights to do so. Many people opposed that animals should be killed if they attack humans, I think this is not a good judgment because animals attack humans for a reason, maybe just to protect themselves. But, if it is animal own problems like mental problem other diseases, they should not be killed instead of sending them to health care center.
Recently, in Malaysia, there is a case happened in Seremban, “Stray Dogs Being Euthanized Publicly in Seremban”. This news went viral in Malaysia; many of the people go against the government in Seremban because of ordering people to kill those stray dogs. My heart really breaks when I saw those stray dogs being dragged out from the bottom of the car, and being tortured to death. Those stray dogs were shivering when they saw their friends are being killed one by one by humans. From others perspective, people strongly agree that animals should be killed if they injured humans. In my opinion, I do not agree with this statement, because I strongly believed that this kind of issue can be solved by sending those stray dogs to a dog expert instead of killing them like that. A dog expert would have some better recommendations on how to deal with those stray dogs. The same problem goes to human, if ones have mental problem such as attacking other people, the solution is to send them to mental people’s home. Why can’t animals be treated as fair as humans?
In Canada and United States of America, their government has some of the strict laws regarding animal’s rights. According to Animal Cruelty Law in Canada, if people harm or kill an animal without proper justification, it is actually a crime and should be punished. This law states that no one can harm or kill the animals unless they are a treat to the society like having a disease and could harm the society. To protect the animal’s rights, there is no zero tolerance for animal cruelty. On the other hand, some of the Asian countries, especially Pakistan, India and China, they used animals as labors. Government of these countries does not respect the animal’s rights because they do not care about what is actually happening to the animals.
Do not forget that animals are quite similar to humans; they also have feelings like us. Animals can suffer, therefore as humans; we have to care about their feelings and not to do things that will cause them to suffer unnecessarily. In contrast, if we are going to care about the suffering of other humans, then logically we should also care about the suffering of other nonhumans too. As an example, animals also have their own family members, if they lose their loved one, they will also feel the pain like how humans feel. To be honest, animals suffered more compared to humans, because they can’t do anything even though they are being tortured by humans. Humans hunted them for the uses as food; humans destroyed their habitats for the uses of constructions; humans killed them for the uses as experimental purpose. Humans are too selfish because they do not care about the suffering of animals, they just kill them as they like. They don’t care what is going to happen to those animal’s families.
In today’s society, animals deserve just as much freedom as humans have. Although human population is much bigger, we are not superior in status. Humans tend to control everything and do whatever they want without considering others nonhuman. Based on the research, in USA, around 7 Billion animals die at the hand of humans. 95% of them were being killed for uses as food. Animals do not have the rights to control because they unable to speak for themselves, that’s why people go beyond animal’s rights and take over them. Since animals cannot speak to protect themselves, as human, it is our responsibility to stand up for their rights as nonhuman animals. Humans are the caretakers of the planet, so it is our duty to take care all the animals by treating them with decency.
Animal’ s rights teach us that there are some things that are morally wrong to do to animals. Humans should respect their rights because animals were put on earth to become the companion of humans. Therefore, humans should treat them like their own people and handle them with care. Animals could not think like how humans think, so humans should watch them and make sure that they are always safe. As we can see, dogs are well-loved by people, but please be a responsible owner if you are planning to have a pet. On the other hand, if you are not willing to have them anymore, please do remember send them to pet center. This is because, if those dogs were left outside the residential areas, they might get injured or being harmed by other animals or people. As time goes by, more and more stray dogs are on the streets, because of those irresponsible owners. They will just dump their pets out there, and this causes overpopulation of stray dogs. This may lead to unwanted problems like stray dogs were being killed by humans due to too many stray dogs on the streets.
Today, many people feel that animal testing does not really exist as they unable to see it directly. They do not realize that animal testing is being done by many of the major companies. People in the market will just buy the cosmetic products without knowing the sources of all those products. And of course, this motivates the sellers to produce more, and more animals are being killed for experimental test. Animal testing is cruel and unreliable; they have to go through a series of test that will be very painful. Some of the animals have been tortured to death by substances such as drugs, detergent and also tobacco. In addition, most of the tests on animals can cause permanent injury or even death. Testing of products on animals is completely not needed because viable alternatives are still available. Many cosmetic companies have sought some of the better ways to test their products without the use of animals. As an example, The Body Shop, a well-known cosmetics and bath-product company, they develop products with the use of natural ingredients, like basin nut oil and bananas instead of using animal test.
As we can see getting more and more animals are in the laboratories, because humans are powerful enough to keep them in there, not because they truly belong to there. Once humans put them in the cages, it is very difficult for animals to escape. That day onwards, animals do not have their freedom anymore; they have to follow whatever instructions are given. Even though, animals are in pain, they can’t talk to protect themselves, but they can express their feelings; but human does not care about it. All they want is to kill as many as possible to boost up their production. No matter what laws exist, experimentation will just continue. However, still got many people believe that animal testing is something that can be accepted because animals are sacrificed to make products for human use. The problem is that the animal’s safety and well-being are generally not a consideration. All of these tests are done in the interest of human welfare, without considering how the animals are being treated.
The purpose of animals in this planet is same as human live their own life; and not come into being to serve or provide for humans. Animals can be used as a source of milk, skin and meat, but humans have to protect them from being killed or tortured. Animals have a valued life to them same as humans, they also need a quality and long life. They need the freedom to walk from one place to another place; the young ones need to enjoy their mother’s milk. They deserve to feel the life is not only about suffering but can be enjoyed too.
Humans should always treat animals with love and compassion because god created animals for us. Most of the people will abandon their pets because they feel that they have nothing to lose since they received it for free. But, if more people were willing to spend more money to purchase a pet, they may be less likely to just discard them onto the streets. Nowadays, people prefer not to have pet at home because they feel that animal makes too much noise, scratches all over the walls or bites. It is a big commitment for people to bring an animal home because you have to keep your promise of taking care of them. Animals need just as much attention and love as children do. When people leave their pets outside their houses and locked them up with chains, it is really unfair for the animals because they could not move around as they like. In contrast, a child needs a place that is comfortable to sleep; same goes to animals, they need too. But, if their owner locked them up, they cannot move and find a warm place to sleep when the weather is cold out there. Humans should treat their animals like their own family if you commit to bring them home. If you would not throw away your child as he or she cried too much, then you should treat your animals just the same. Many animals that are being thrown out on the streets will mostly likely die unless adopted by new owner.
In many countries like, France, England, Japan and Australia, these countries famous in horse racing, where they will use the horses to run a competition. Horse racing causes many innocent horses to suffer terribly because they are forced to run as fast as possible or else they will be whacked by the riders. Some of the horses will die on the race course because they have no chance to stop themselves even though they reach the exhaustion point. It is very painful to use whips to whack the horses; their bodies are full of scars. To human, it is fun to watch the horse racing performance; but to those horses, they are actually suffering. As time goes by, majority of the horses are getting older and older, they could not run anymore, humans will just slaughter them and send them to the horse meat industries. To those horses, once they are in human’s hands, they have no ways to escape anymore, either they escape or they die.
Another situation we could see animals lose their rights of being freedom is at the circuses. To force the animals to perform in the circus, those circus trainers abuse them with whips, electric prods and also tight collars. As an example, elephants are beaten with bull hooks and shocked by electric prods. Animals should not be used in circus; they don’t have their rights to move around because they are being caged by the circus trainers. Most of the people believe that this circus performance is dangerous to public because those animals might attack the people. The main reason animals would attack public is because they get angry of being tortured in the circus. They are just like humans, they have emotions too. So, public should be more aware of this situation, they should ban or restrict the use of animals in circuses.
Conclusion, God has created this earth and gives the equal rights to everyone to live with freedom, regardless that he is human or nonhuman. But as time goes by, the living condition it is getting worst and worst compared to older times because the population is increasing, and more forests are falling down just to get more space for humans to live. This benefits the humans, but people put wildlife and animals in danger because they lose their homes just to serve humans. For an example in India, their land and forest are about to finish because of the over population. Thus, this causes the price of vegetables went up; and more people are becoming non vegetarian. Humans kill animals for food is actually going against the animal’s rights, as human, we should show some mercy to animals. People have to oppose the use of leather material and do not support the sellers. In addition, the use of animals for experiment testing should be limited, which means that drug test should not be able to harm the animals. Humans should not use animals in entertainment like circuses, because it is actually torturing the animals, and it should be banned in every country. Finally, I would like to say that everyone should have equal rights, show some mercy and oppose the abuse of animals.