Animal Rights and Ethics……

Ethics is the part of philosophy that asks how people should live their lives and how they should do good and right to each other. Animal ethics is the same but includes animals. Animal Ethics is about acting for the moral good of animals (including humans) by understanding animal-human moral issues through knowledge and reasoning. An ethical issue is when you think a harm or wrong is happening and something should be done about it. Ethics and Animal Rights

Animal Rights is the movement to protect animals from being used or regarded as property by human beings. Animal Welfare is concerned with ensuring that animal suffering for necessary purposes be eliminated or reduced to a minimum and that the usage of animals be a last resort. Most animal rights activists are concerned with preventing cruelty to animals - but should we go further? Does ensuring animal welfare require providing for animal happiness as well as eliminating suffering?

Animal Liberation coexists with the definition of animal rights, yet it is often referred to in a more radical context as a movement that seeks to regard animals as persons and that they too have moral and individual rights that must be protected. Speciesism is a term more familiar to and used by advocates of animal rights. It is a term that was coined in 1970 by Richard Ryder. It refers to values or rights assignments of various classes of species (Wikipedia), thereby creating a prejudice similar to racism or sexism. In defense of animals, advocates refer to speciesism when humans, who represent only one species of the animal kingdom, view themselves as the most important species in the animal kingdom. Who decides the pecking order….

How are views and opinions formed? Christianity: The Garden of Eden, in which human beings lived in peace and harmony with animals, demonstrates God's ideal world Religion, Family, Society, Media Jewish slaughter rules Observant Jews should only eat meat or poultry that has been killed in the approved way, called shechita. The animal must be killed by cutting the throat with a single stroke from a very sharp instrument called a chalaf The cut must sever the trachea, oesophagus, carotid arteries and jugular veins The chalaf must be perfectly sharp and smooth, with no notches or blemishes

Got a sweet tooth? Think twice before picking up a Mars candy bar! Mars recently funded a deadly experiment on rats to determine the effects of chocolate ingredients on their blood vessels. Experimenters force-fed the rats by shoving plastic tubes down their throats and then cut open the rats' legs to expose an artery, which was clamped shut to block blood flow. After the experiment, the animals were killed. Mars has also funded cruel experiments in which mice were fed a candy ingredient and forced to swim in a pool of a water mixed with white paint. The mice had to find a hidden platform to avoid drowning, only to be killed and dissected later on.

What are the Pros of animal testing?

Research- Improving health and well being of people. Improving the health and welfare of entertainment, recreational, sport and service animals. Improving the health welfare and productivity of farm animals and other production animals. Broadening the foundations of biological science, including our knowledge and understanding of life processes in all animal species. Education- The knowledge gained about animals and people through research needs to be passed on for the future- Doctors, Nurses and other health professionals. Animal car personnel, veterinarians, farmers, zoo keepers. School, university and any type of educator, researchers in animal based science. Anaesthetics- The understanding of how anaesthetics work, the discovery and testing of new and better anaesthetics and the continuing refinement of the methods of giving anaesthetics to make surgeries safer have all relied heavily on animal based studies. Antiseptics (Asepsis and Antibiotics) -Animal based studies have been heavily relied upon in improving our knowledge in the discovery, refinement and assessment of antiseptics, aseptic techniques and other substances including antibiotics. Vaccines- Testing on animals has helped to develop vaccinesfor many life threatening diseases like Herpes Simplex, Hepatitis B, Polio, Rabies, Malaria, Mumps and virus related to organ transplantation rejection.

What are the Cons of animal testing? Right now, millions of mice, rats, rabbits, primates, cats, dogs, and other animals are locked inside cold, barren cages in laboratories across the country. More than 100 million animals every year suffer and die in cruel chemical, drug, food and cosmetic tests, biology lessons, medical training exercises, and curiosity-driven medical experiments. The main disadvantages to animal testing are animal discomfort and death, species- extrapolation problems and excessive time and expense. Animal protection advocates stress that the main disadvantage is the inhumane treatment of animals in tests due to the fact that anaesthesia for the alleviation of pain is often not administered. Scientists allege that using anaesthesia will interfere with test results.

YesNo Human life has greater intrinsic value than animal life Animals have as much right to life as human beings Legislation protects all lab animals from cruelty or mistreatment. Strict controls have not prevented researchers from abusing animals- Although such instances are rare. Millions od animals are killed for food every year. If anything, medical research is a more worthy death. Deaths through research are absolutely unnecessary and are morally no different from murder. Few animals feel any pain as they are killed before they have the chance to suffer. When locked up they suffer tremendous stress, Can we know they don't feel pain. Is animal testing morally right?

Peter Singer, author of animal liberation and president of Animal Rights International talks to City Beat on his views of animal rights. Animal factories are one more sign of the extent to which our technological capacities have advanced faster than our ethics. The factory farm is nothing more than the application of technology to the idea that animals are means to our ends. Our eating habits are dear to us and not easily altered. We have a strong interest in convincing ourselves that our concern for other animals does not require us to stop eating them. No one in the habit of eating an animal can be completely without bias in judging whether the conditions in which that animal is reared caused suffering. Animal Liberation and our ethics...

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