Article From SubmitYOURArticle.com: History of Animal Rights

Copyright (c) 2010 Brian Tse

Animals Rights has been a long debated issue
because it is difficult for either side to win so
a middle ground is usually sought out. A common
argument for the side of the people who believed
in full rights for the animals was that eating
animals is wrong because it would take away an
animal's life and an animal can reason and sense
just like humans which would make eating them
unfair. There has been a religion called Jainism
which forbids any animal eating and it is so
extreme that they have to cover their mouth to
prevent accidentally swallowing an insect and
every night before they sleep, they pray for
forgiveness in case they accidentally killed some
living thing.

One of the most significant years for the idea of
animal rights was 1641 when a philosopher named
Jean-Jacques Rousseau who based his ideas for
animal rights all on the issue of animal
consciousness. He said that animals are sensitive
to things and seek to participate in the natural
rights of the universe. Some people today argue
about the animal consciousness issue as well,
which is basically, if an animal is aware of its
feelings then it shouldn't be eaten or killed.
The first law that prevented animal cruelty was
passed in 1635 which prohibited cutting wool off
sheep and attaching ploughs to horses. Other
countries didn't do that because wool and horse
powered ploughs were big convenience.

The group of people that started making animal
rights a big issue were the puritans who managed
to pass some animal protection laws in England.
For the US, the first animal rights act was
passed in 1641 in Massachusetts. Although all of
know that killing animals is wrong, we still do
it because they give us so much conveniences.

Also in history, there are those people who are
somewhat for animal rights but not entirely for
it. They don't mind eating animals but are
against the use of animals for experimental use
in medical research. They believe that animals
don't deserve all the rights, only a few. There
are people for animal rights as well as people
who are not for animal rights and ever since it
became an issue, when one side wins, the other
side would still continue to do as much as
possible to lessen the other side's victory. Like
in 2007, the U.S animal rights people managed to
pass a legislation that ended horse slaughter in
the U.S. but live horses were still exported to
be slaughtered outside of the U.S. Then the horse
meat would get shipped back to the U.S.

There have also been animal rights extremists in
the past who would slash the tires of a hunter's
vehicle and break a lot of hunting equipment. One
group of people in 1973, even burned down a
pharmaceutical research laboratory. Spain became
the first country to grant legal rights to
animals, which were the apes, and this happened
less than a year ago in June of 2008. That was a
landmark event for animal right. One of the
biggest factors in history of animal rights is
religion. Some religions absolutely prohibit the
killing of certain animals. But some religions
used to sacrifice animals. And then there are
those religions where the topic of animal rights
is debatable. People who aren't for animal
rights say that humans have dominion over
everything which means that they should be
allowed to do what they want to other species.
The strong survive and the weak die out (Natural
Selection). Some people who are not for animal
rights can say that animals have been eating
other animals for millions of years, so why is so
much more wrong when a human eats another animal?

Why are animal rights activists spending so much
effort to stop us from eating/killing an animal
and not spending any effort on preventing
something like a lion from eating a deer? Animal
rights activists probably blame humans more
because we have a choice to not eat animals, but
we still do it anyway. Today when you ask
someone if they are for animal rights, they might
say something like "I don't like the killing of
animals but I still like to eat them" and that's
where it stands for most people right now.

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Brian Tse is a pet owner and would like to spread
the message to people who truly care about
animals, about the origins of animal rights.
Hopefully this would provide more insight for the
animal lovers out there. He also dedicates some
time to helping people with math, you can visit
his algebra 1 worksheets site at
http://www.mathonlinework.com or visit
animalrights.change.org.

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