Animal Rights Essay -- Legal Issues, Animal Rights

Justifying Animal Rights In this society, it is under law for all people have the basic rights under the universal declaration of human rights. As stated, this only benefits humans, where humans rule the world. So where does the rights of animals come from? Many people do not understand animal rights and how we should treat them equally and why. Through animal research and experimentations, humans are getting benefit and gains in the obscene inhumane ways; the poor animals are suffering through pain and distress, even though they have moral status and rights. A right is a particular way of protecting interests, to say that an interest is protected by a right, is to say that interest is protected against being ignored or violated simple because this will benefit someone else. So what are animal rights? Animal rights is the idea that animals have the same rights as humans, to live free of suffrage, just as important as living individuals, and with the same moral status as humans. According to Doris Lin, an animal rights attorney and the Vice President of Legal Affairs for the Bear Education and Resource Group, â€Å"They have a right to be free of oppression, confinement, use and abuse by humans.† However, rights are not absolute in the sense that their protection has no exception. David DeGrazia, the author of many scholarly animal rights books dealing ethical and philosophical issues, explained that animal rights might be unfamiliar to most people because of the daily abuses and killing toward animals that are viewed as socially a cceptable, and unconsciously ignored due to normal day-to-day activities and even festivals with animal killings for fun. (12) Animal abuses can be ranged from animal experimentations and testings... ... animal rights view, the animals, like humans have rights in the â€Å"utility- trumping sense†. The utility-trumping sense have vital interest that we must not override, even in an effort to maximize the utility for society. (Animal Rights, 20) Billions of animals are being slaughtered, abused, and harmed every year; causing enormous amounts of pain, suffering and distress upon them. It is wrong for humans to cause extended harm to animals for no compelling reason, for the fact that they have moral statuses. We have obligations to animals, and these are not simply grounded in human interests. However, the issues of moral status and equal consideration are far more fundamental and far-reaching in practical impact as DeGrazia have stated. (38) Animals have as much moral status and rights as humans do, and are most definitely worthy of our consideration in their lives.