Five Ethical Issues of Animal vs. Human Rights

As children we all have seen beautiful animals being raised as pets by families around us and wanted to have a pet for ourselves too. Many of us have had the privilege of ‘owning’ a pet animal and regard ourselves as ‘animal lovers’ simply because we love cuddly kittens and dogs. But could there be something that we are ignoring when it comes to the rights of animals as compared with the rights of humans?

1. Sexual Abuse: Females are raped or forcefully inseminated in pet trade, dairy and animal farms where they are forcefully restrained during the act for the sole purpose of monetary profit of humans. In the case of special or selective breeding they are often subject to forced incest with their own sons or close family members which also causes several genetic complications and creates health problems such as low immunity, cancer and early death, while unwanted or unattractive babies are disposed off. Female animals are found suffering in gruesome pain with the frequent forced intercourse and labor of bearing children repeatedly, not to mention the emotional agony of their babies being snatched away. Is it possible for us to allow human females and babies to be abused and sold similarly? Then why are there no laws against animal breeding, farming and trade?
2. Animal Control and Strays: While there are thousands of strays suffering, hungry and maimed on the streets or dying in road accidents in many underdeveloped countries, in developed nations we see hardly any stray dogs or cats on the streets because they are simply caught and killed in ‘animal pounds’ by animal control officers if not found or adopted within a few days of being lost or abandoned. Animal shelters try to rescue as many as they can but quite often animals are treated as ‘easily disposable’ trash on our streets and killed as soon as possible unless adopted. Pets are also euthanized or ‘put down’ by vets quite easily whereas human euthanasia is considered questionable even in the most severe of cases. Could we ever consider culling of homeless or ill humans in the same way? Then how do we justify this being done to animals just to restrict their population or lifespan simply because they are of no economic benefit to us.
3. Spaying and Neutering: Spaying and neutering pets is mandatory almost everywhere or at least considered essential for all pet ‘owners’, so much so that baby animals are operated upon even before they have ever had a chance of naturally growing into or exploring their sexuality. Natural intercourse and mating between animals is considered wrong whereas forced intercourse for human greed is considered normal. This itself is one of the most ironic and usually ignored ethical issue when it comes to animal rights. The only reason for this is the fear that we might have to take care of the babies of our highly ‘loved’ pets which creates the issue of abandoning those ‘excess’ babies that land into animal pounds unless we spay and neuter them and prevent them from reproducing any further. Could we think of doing these procedures of spaying and neutering to our own human children for the sake or birth control or population control? Then why is do we not treat our pets in the same compassionate way?
4. Owning Animals: When it comes to humans we consider ourselves as free beings with the rights to our own independent life. However animals are treated as commodities for sale, as exhibits in zoos and as easy subjects of experimentation, dissection and animal-testing. We proudly call ourselves pet-owners as if it is our right to own another being. We have artificially domesticated animals by taking them out of their natural habitats to be turned into our pets or farm animals for our enjoyment and comfort. Use and abuse of animals whether as race horses, beasts of burdens, cows for milking, sheep for shearing, cattle for rearing, hens for egg laying, pets for trading or for any selfish purpose whatsoever is unethical, no matter how prevalent and widespread. Could we allow ourselves or our human children to be ‘owned’ by any other alien specie for any of their experiments or projects? Then how do we consider ourselves to be any less monstrous when it comes to the way we treat other species on earth?
5. Slaughterhouses: The biggest of all crimes in the world happens not anywhere around us but on our dinner tables everyday. We slaughter animals as if they were vegetables or fruits growing on trees and are ‘meant’ to be eaten. Because we purchase these slaughtered animals at the butchers or from supermarkets, all sliced and wrapped in packets, most children do not even know that there was immense bloodshed and pain in the making of their ‘happy meals’. We are responsible for lying and hiding facts from our children just to keep them eating the same things that we have been programmed to eat by our parents. Someone rightly said ‘if slaughterhouses were made of glass, everyone would turn vegan’. Yet, we vehemently protest when vegans try to post videos or pictures of what goes on behind closed doors of animal factory or farms even as billions of innocent animals are gruesomely murdered day after day simply to feed the taste-buds of the majority who refuse to open their eyes. This by itself is the single most demonic act that makes us the most evil specie on the planet. When we have strict laws and religious commandments preventing murder or killing of humans, then how come our laws have failed miserably when it comes to animals?

Let us ask ourselves, ‘how can we go to any kind of ‘heaven’ or be one with any ‘God’ by simply following a certain faith or beliefs or merely through rituals, prayers and meditation, unless we become kind and compassionate to all creatures ourselves?’ Mainstream religions have so far made us believe that the ‘Creator’ considers humankind to be a special race or species who is allowed to dominate earth and control or abuse land and animals at our will, yet common sense tells us that the Creator is One with all beings and not partial to human specie. Would we ever be able to actually be in the energy of the One True Creator and be able to manifest a kind and compassionate universe instead of being slave to regressive beliefs that have only led to tremendous suffering and degradation of our planet?