It's almost as if, just because there's this fact of consciousness, all kinds of privileges and entitlements accrue to it. This is somewhat in keeping with the present mentality that you can pluck rights out of thin air. People do that. I have an inalienable right to breast feed a baby in public, many women say. I have a right to be a homosexual.
Animals have rights to live.
You'll usually get a silence when you ask such a question. Rights are just claims to things. They're a claim to something that justice gives you. Now, you can't have justice without a law. And so you can't have rights without higher laws that establish this entitlement.