Animal Rights Rough Draft

For years animals have been man’s best companion as well as worst enemy. The mass variety of them make it easy to differentiate and divide them into categories based on their intelligence or social behavior. The moral idea of animal protection began in December 1641. Two hundred years later, animals do not have any rights because they are subjected to humans. But what is the line that divides humans from animals and when will this line be drawn? Although animals are not considered to be people by every human, they still deserve rights and protection to some extent because they have consciousness, experience emotions, and it’s our moral obligation as humans.

Some may say that the intelligence level of most animals is too low for the animal to have a conscious, therefore we should not give them rights. Although some animals have smaller brain development than others, they continue to surprise humans through experiments, social interactions, and consciousness. Similar to humans, animals learn how to adapt and develop.

For example, Jeremy Rifkin mentions in the article “A Change of Heart about Animals” a controlled experiment of a bird transforming straight wires into hooks because her food is stuck inside a narrow tube. Similarly, Rifkin also refers to the famous gorilla named Koko who scores “between 70 and 95” on human IQ tests. The average human will score between 90 and 110 meaning Koko will sometimes score above humans. Lastly, in the article “Hooked on a Myth” by Victoria Braithwaite, she says that there are “multiple definitions” of consciousness and its too hard to define it for ourselves, so how can we “detect it in fish”? In fact, even fish have similar abilities and memory capacities as humans.

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Others may say that animals do not experience the same emotional pains and satisfaction as humans do. However, they too will mourn and grieve at death and some will feel pain through nociceptors, like humans do. Rifkin shares the example of an elephants mourning for “their dead kin for days”. In these moments of experiencing grief, it proves the emotional capacity they have. Along with emotional suffering, many animals like fish experience physical suffering that many humans overlook. However, many fish have they same “specialized nerve endings called nociceptors” that humans do, mentioned by Braithwaite. She notes that many fish even have the same “emotion, learning and memory” functions that humans do.

While I do feel that animals are hard to describe as ‘people’, they should still obtain the rights to be treated fairly. According to Rifkin, “thousands of animals are subjected each year to painful laboratory experiments” and many are raised horribly only to be sent to the slaughter house. Even though some animals, like fish, do not react the same to pain as most other animals would, does not mean they should be treated any differently. Millions of fish are hooked onto the barb wires and sent to their death almost immediately for the satisfaction of many sportsmen. Ed Yong quotes the primatologist Frans de Waal of Emory University in the article “Of Primates and Personhood: Will According Rights and ‘Dignity’ to Nonhuman Organisms Halt Research?” that the best experiments are the ones we can apply to human volunteers.

De Waal also says that by giving rights to certain animals, like apes, why shouldn’t we do so with other animals? In conclusion, it’s important to recognize the line in which we divide personhood and animals. Considering the similarities between humans and animals change many hearts into understanding the need for animal rights. By looking at the consciousness, emotions, and pain many animals suffer, it helps show how overlooked many feelings of animals are. Rights for animals do not have to be as extreme as letting them vote or equality in general, however changes need to be made.