Animal equality, and the application of rights to animals in acknowledgement of their sentience

I didn"t fit all of my arguments in this one post, thus I will include them in future rounds. I gathered most of my arguments from the websites provided, and thus aren"t explicitly mentioned within the post. We as humans; both as a race and as a society, pride ourselves on our democratic laws, our thorough harness on morality, and our relatively peaceful and humane existence. Our laws take into consideration our status as sentient beings and attempt to make life as humane and peaceful as possible. However, while this is all instrumentally beneficial to our existence. .. but what about animals? Animals do in fact possess a sentience on the level of humans and should be treated in accordance with this fact. Sentience: Sentience is considered to be an objective factor in whether or not a being deserves a right to life, for if that being can experience pain and pleasure, then it's life has meaning, as a Hedonist (myself) would argue, thus, if It is a significant factor in attributing a quality to a certain life, why is it a quality that we lack in our acknowledgment of animals? Animals are sentient beings. Cows scream when in the slaughterhouse, whereas cats purr in a joyous fashion whenever they are stroked. Animals display clear physical reactions to certain event, emotions of varying extents are displayed when the animal is experiencing pleasure of pain, this is recognizable through basic observation and experience. Studies conducted on over 2,500 animals proves that they can experiences a variety of emotions, and actively encourage the consumption of good food (Hens with their young), and recognizing the faces of over 50 different animals, this is a social characteristic that has developed with time, evolved alongside the requirements of animals, they are, by nature, social animals and require socialisation for their survival, something which isn"t permitted to any degree in the animal industry, being the pinnacle of all socially accepted evils. The theory of evolution also supports this statement, in the form of Darwin's theory of evolutionary continuity; that differences existing between species anatomically, physiologically and psychologically, are of varying degrees, rather than whether or not they actually exist. For example, areas of our brain that are used for important conscious processing also exist within animals; our ability to experiences pleasure and pain must also be prevalent to some degree in animals through the logic of this theory, for if we as sentient beings share certain characteristics with animals then it signifies that they are comparable to us. Furthermore, animals display an emotional intelligence in addition to physical and sensual sentience. Cats care for their kittens, mother hens nurture their chicks caringly and diligently for great periods of time, they are capable of emotions such as love, not only for their own young but also for humans, as any of you with pets are aware of. Dogs and cats, but also any other domesticated animal falls well within the realms of feeling love and adoration for a certain being, not purely for that being"s provision of food and shelter, but also for its company. Thus, if regular domesticated animals actively display emotion and affection, then other, non-domesticated animals are also able to do so. The key distinction here is that all animals are sentient, regardless of whether or not it is the tamed home cat that you so love, or the un-named, un-acknowledge cow that will perish in vain, for the fulfilment of our primitive desires. There exists a double-standard of sorts, where we are more than happy to take care of a cat and treat it with kindness and respect. That willingness to do good is equal in potency to that to do evil, to embark upon a morally bankrupt pilgrimage to McDonald"s and order a double-hamburger and scoff that down in quick succession to the nuggets that you also bought. Double-standards and the animal industry: While we love our pets at home, we don"t give this same level of affection or care to other animals, this I view to be a contradiction. We have already established that all animals, whether domesticated pets or not, are sentient beings, and thus should be treated with a level of respect that Is in acknowledgement of their sentience, except very few actually adopt this principle. We all say that we love animals, but we are only referring to a particular species or socially acceptable pets, that one would expect to have in their home. We are indoctrinated into a society that views the consumption of rotting flesh and failed embryos as a norm, where eating meat Is normal and "healthy". It is an immense contradiction to say that we love animals, yet continuing to live our damaging ways of eating meat and wearing leather, this is an inconsistent triad (to borrow from Philosophy of religion briefly), the immense, large-scale existence of suffering and death within the animal industry exists, yet we fully support this and yet at the same time consume its products. If we truly do love animals, for the caring, affectionate and loyal beings that they can be, we should reject the animal industry and live a vegan lifestyle, reducing suffering and death as much as possible. To discuss the animal industry is to mention the greatest crime of the rejection of the status of "sentient beings" that animals have, it isn"t an industry, but a mass genocide, the likes of which is only comparable to the days of Hitler and Stalin. Chickens, one of the most social animals, confined to a cage barely able to contain their body, Cows, raped and mutilated within the dairy industry. Cows are slaughtered for their meat, and lambs, murdered in their infancy. The end of the line of all animals within this morally bankrupt industry is death. While some may argue that the dairy industry doesn"t require animals to die, in eventuality, they will have their throats slit like the rest of them. While emotional pandering and guilt-tripping isn"t a desired argument of mine, it is merely admittance of the truth, of what actually goes on behind those KFC logos and pretentious, lying adverts that are played claiming the fair treatment of all animals" their "fair treatment" is only fair in that is guarantees their eventual painful death. This is what occurs with the absence of the recognition of animal"s rightful sovereignty and sentience, and why we should accept this obvious fact and change our damaging ways as a species, to cease our speciesism, as Peter Singer coined it. Why we need to accept the sentience of animals: Simply put, it is a contradiction. To pride ourselves off our laws and regulations that protect humans and pursue peace, while not handing these out to various species which are thrice our number, while possessing an equal level of sentience is to forfeit our right to call ourselves a morally aware democracy. I"m not calling for animals to be allowed to vote, for that is absurd, as Bentham once said: "The question is not can they reason, nor can they talk" but can they suffer", but merely the right to life, a life of liberty and freedom, protection against infringement on their lives. I understand that this change will be difficult, for it cannot be achieved in a small space of time, but nonetheless, it should be a goal that we as an intelligent and morally aware species should be working towards. Websites used: . https://www.ciwf.org.uk... . https://www.livescience.com... . https://www.peta.org...