Animal Deserve Their Own Bill of Rights

Many have always seen animals as vicious threats so it would not matter how humans treat them. Not many know how much they suffer every day due to the treatment they get around the world from others. Why should animals suffer and be used as experiments to feed scientists with more information? Innocent animals are just like any human being, the difference is just that animals live in the wild. In addition to animals not getting the best treatment they deserve, they also are being held captive to entertain their audience and gain some sort of benefit. If humans have their own Bill of Rights, it is only right if animals do too. The Animal Legal Defense Fund comes into play by having the right to protect animals, “[it is] a petition to the United States Congress, stating the basic, inalienable rights that all sentient beings have—and that our government should protect”.

There are always new discoveries that many scientists and people themselves find out every day. Studies such as testing their conceptual abilities, human IQ, and how animals are similar to humans is shown in the article, “A Change of Heart about Animals” by Jeremy Rifkin, where Rifkin mentions New Caledonian crows named Betty and Abel. Researchers were astonished at the fact that both crows were intelligent enough to, “snag the piece of meat from inside a tube,” researches then repeated the experiment only to come to the conclusion that Betty “fashioned a hook out of the wire nin out of 10 times”. To add on, Rifkin acknowledges the intelligence of Koko, a 300-pound gorilla. She was “taught sign language and mastered more than 1,000 signs and understands several thousand English words,” Koko scores between 70 and 95 on Human IQ. The Animal Bill of Rights signifies that animals are highly aware of what is happening.

Nonetheless, there are various organizations such as the Great Ape Project that argues rights for animals. Furthermore, “it demands a basic set of moral and legal rights for chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, and orangutans” which connects back to the Animal Bill of rights. The Great Ape Project is restricting the law that animals are not property, “Those laws would ban the use of apes in experiment or entertainment or commercial ventures, and they would set higher standards for their conditions in captivity” this strongly exhibits how apes are worth more than just being humans property. The Animal Bill of Rights endorses the right of laboratory animals and how they should not be used in cruel or unnecessary experiments.

Some might disagree upon the fact that animals do not deserve their own Animal Bill of rights. Individuals who believe so, might not be familiarized and updated on the studies that were done on animals. Those unfamiliar with the studies may be interested to know that animals crave affection and “are easily depressed if [they] are isolated or denied playtime with each other”.

To conclude, many people presume animals are vicious and have no feelings whatsoever. Animals should not be used for experiments, nor be mistreated in various ways. There should not be any more violence going around the world towards innocent animals. This bill will hopefully change the view of people and encourage them to take into consideration animals emotions.     

Works Cited

1. Animal Legal Defense Fund. (n.d.). Animal Bill of Rights. Retrieved from https://aldf.org/issue/animal-bill-of-rights/
2. Rifkin, J. (2003). A Change of Heart about Animals. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jul-13-op-rifkin13-story.html
3. Great Ape Project. (n.d.). About Us. Retrieved from https://www.greatapeproject.org/about-us/
4. Cavalieri, P., & Singer, P. (Eds.). (1993). The Great Ape Project: Equality beyond humanity. St. Martin's Griffin.
5. De Waal, F. B. (2013). The bonobo and the atheist: In search of humanism among the primates. W. W. Norton & Company.
6. Bekoff, M. (2007). The emotional lives of animals: A leading scientist explores animal joy, sorrow, and empathy - and why they matter. New World Library.
7. Marino, L. (2017). Thinking chickens: A review of cognition, emotion, and behavior in the domestic chicken. Animal Cognition, 20(2), 127-147.
8. Rollin, B. E. (1989). The unheeded cry: Animal consciousness, animal pain, and science. Oxford University Press.
9. Allen, C., & Bekoff, M. (1999). Species of mind: The philosophy and biology of cognitive ethology. MIT Press.
10. Dawkins, M. S. (2006). Through our eyes only? The search for animal consciousness. Oxford University Press.