Animal Rights - Do We Really Love Our Animals?
Uploaded by MJ23 on Jul 05, 2004
Do you consider yourself a pet lover? Do you love animals in general? Can you imagine yourself as a little boy in a trailer far away from the depths of socialization? Once upon a time there was this boy, and this boy had a friend. No matter how hard times got he had Bo. The boy was incredibly happy because he had always dreamed of having a dog like that, a companion. Then your friend dies and you are left standing. Can you imagine the pain?
Nobody likes to lose a good friend or a pet, and the majority of the population loves animals. However, evidence points that people don’t like animals as much as they claim to because the majority of the population tends to over look the genocide that exists this very instance. Gandhi once wrote, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the ways its animals are treated"(Why Vegan? 1) Gandhi brings up a good point because the issue of Animal Rights is in fact an issue of one’s moral code. To define the morality and ethics, this paper will refer to Ayn Rand’s definition taken from the book, The Virtue of Selfishness. Rand describes itthis way, "It is a code of values to guide a man’s choices and actions that determine the purpose of his life" (Rand 13). Can the common animal lover really love animals that much and is it in their moral code to protect the living? Maybe they would if they were presented with the facts about vivisection and the meat industry. The truth of the matter is, people don’t love animals as much as they claim to, because they allow mistreatment, support companies that practice Vivisection, and the majority of the population still eats meat.
The first form of oppression comes from probably one of the most grotesquely cruel practices of all. Did you know that from buying your toothpaste to buying your cosmetics, you open yourself up for the opportunity to participate in the funding of Vivisection? PETA, an international non profit organization designed to protect the rights of animals has defined the term as, "Vivisection is the practice of experimenting on live animals" (PETA 1). Let’s start with the large amount of animals Vivisection effects. The American Anti-Vivisection Society reports that, "Between 25 and 50 million animals are killed in American Laboratories each Year"(www.aavs.org/Doc). Animal’s...