Animal Rights

A person dying is a totally irrelevant case to my statement. A person dying is involuntary, however it is a natural process, which cannot be altered or changed. Something that feels pain should be given rights, because it is immoral for a human to afflict pain upon an innocent animal. If there was no moral standard for the care and respect of animals in general, wouldn't there be an immense amount of animal-killing every day? A wild animal killing another wild animal is also a different and an irrelevant contradiction to my statement. A human eating other animals isn't illegal because it was part of our nature to do so. A study on fossil remains on prehistoric humans revealed that "early man was neither so carnivorous nor so herbivorous as some previous studies have indicated, but instead had a more balanced diet." So, prehistoric people were not influenced by any religion, law, or etiquette, however still ate meat. It was natural for them to do so. Same concept applies for the "wild animals eating each other" statement. You cannot regulate what was natural. A lion wasn't raised a specific way, just so he could hunt animals and "disobey the standard rules of morality". Lions naturally eat other animals, so that is why no laws are enforced upon that. Going hunting for wild animals is totally defined by your own experiences and opinions. But, shooting a squirrel, which there are so many in this world, of course would not make you feel guilty. But how about shooting a panda? Or for that matter, any endangered animal? A normal human being would probably feel much more moral influence in shooting a panda than a squirrel, or any other common animal. Lastly, if animals could feel pain and didn't deserve rights, how would you know when the animal's body cannot take the pain or damage physically and shuts down? They cannot communicate with us, however a right would ensure that no animals would get killed or hurt. To conclude, plants do not feel pain. Nobody will arrest a human if he rips off a leaf off of a plant. A plant cannot feel pain, but ripping a leaf off would affect them negatively, but not drastically. Hurting animals would drastically affect them in a negative manner, and the hurt is connected through the pain that both humans and animals feel. http://www.nytimes.com... From your case, animal rights has such little effect on the world that there is really no validity for your statement. People hunting? How many people hunt, as opposed to the food chain, which we cannot live without? Imagine a group of lions being hunted until extinction in some hunger-infested country in Africa. Killing all the lions would completely destroy the food chain, and affect the people's chances of survival. Your case of hunting is simply built on pleasure and joy. The benefits I insist are for living. Animal rights hurting human economics has is in such minuscule proportions that the argument once more is vague. The top ten causes of unemployment, according to Economy Watch, are : "Recessions Inflation, disability, undulating business cycles, changes in tastes as well as alterations in the climatic conditions, attitude towards employers, willingness to work, perception of employees, employee values, discriminating factors in the place of work (may include discrimination on the basis of age, class, ethnicity, color and race),and ability to look for employment." My main point is that animal rights would change the moral standards of human interaction with animals. Animals would be respected more, which would ultimately be a positive thing for the world. http://www.economywatch.com... Humans would develop more respect for each other by reflecting their moral standards in society. Suppose this: two young boys (who are friends) are walking through a forest. One sees a squirrel and offers to throw a rock at it, and the other boy responds by saying his Mom taught him not to do so. This boy is instantly thought of as considerate and peaceful, correct? The other is perceived as much more ill mannered and mean. Through animal rights, humans can to a certain depth start to appreciate each other by practicing respect for other inhabitants of this world. The argument I am presenting which I did not address earlier is the reason why humans wouldn't populate the entire earth. You said correctly that the UN would not let that happen. However, what would be one of the main arguments for this? Animals, of course; we would ultimately doom ourselves if there were no other animals on this planet besides us. So, that is why animal rights are so important; they help regulate the human population from inhabiting the entire world, under the policies of United Nations. In our government, killing someone intentionally will obviously bring you in trouble with the law. However, if someone was to break into your house, and you pulled out a gun and shot the robber dead, you would face minimal trouble with the law, if any. So, the same concept is applied for testing animals for scientific research. To cure cancer, we cannot simply give the medicine to another human. Killing animals for scientific research should be extremely regulated and checked on; however for the sake of health and survival testing animals should be perfectly valid. Conclusion: It is moral for humans to recognize animal rights. As a solution, all animals should have rights for their protection of well being and prosperity. The killing and harming of animal rights should be limited to scientific, strictly for health research. Thank you for the debate and I urge a PRO ballot.