Essay on Animal Abuse and Cruelty to Animals

A Beagle becomes a chain smoker in a medical lab. He smokes through a machine linked to his wind pipe by a tube. This experiment is designed to study the connection between smoking and lung disease.

Murder and abuse cases never fail to startle society. Moral codes are flouted with unmatched rigorousness by these indubitable egregious crimes. Sufferers in these cases are often people. Nonetheless, these callous obscenities should not be seen as less important when animals are the victims. Animals undergo horrendous abuse due to barbaric individuals, greed, and unnecessary lab testing.

“It is quite clear that in abusing animals we abuse our relationship with animals, and that we abuse ourselves. We become less human to the extent that we treat any living beings as things” (R.D. Laing). There is a very evident connection between animal cruelty and cruelty to other humans. In studies conducted between 1983 and 2004, 60% of children who met the criteria for child abuse/neglect had families that were cruel to their pets. In 88%

Every 60 seconds an animal is abused. Dogs, cats, horses, and many other types of animals are being neglected and tortured everyday, yet resulting in few and minor consequences for the perpetrators. Animal abuse is prevalent in the United States and has been an ongoing issue since the 1970's, and prior to. Society as a whole has chosen to avoid the facts and arguments about animal cruelty, because to some it is seen as acceptable and typical. It becomes much more frowned upon when people actually see the results of the cruelty, especially in the media.

Animal cruelty can be either deliberate abuse or simply the failure to take care of an animal. Either way, or whether the animal is a pet, a farm animal or wildlife, the victim can suffer terribly. Animal cruelty is an ethical and moral dilemma as there is no clear right or wrong answers that can solve all of the issues. There are numerous opinions on how this issue can be solved, these include;

Many people enjoy companionship with their animals; however, according to the American Society For the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), “every 60 seconds, another animal is abused.” Animals are often neglected in ways such as improper feeding, dog fighting, cockfighting, and being bred in puppy mills. In order to end animal abuse, people need to be enlightened about the multiple ways animals can be abused. Awareness of activities surrounding animal abuse will help decreases animal abuse. Education is of utmost importance in preventing animal abuse.

Intro: Can you imagine having the urge to intentionally hurt or even kill your helpless little puppy? Over the years, animal abuse has increased an unbelievable amount. I believe animal rights need to be enforced to people across the world. Animals are helpless creatures that should only be making the world a better place. I will enforce my belief by explaining what animal cruelty are, animal abandonment laws, and how to report animal cruelty.

For years we have struggled with rights water its humans or nonhumans, and what has rights. Who decides who has rights? There are many organizations that try to help make animal right known such as Friends of Animals, Animal Aid and many more. However, there are still injustices occurring nonhumans. I analyzed three articles to find out what causes nonhuman inequality.“Weighing and Protecting life: Beyond Speciesism, Welfarism, and legalism,” Steven Best will be my first source. Best focuses on the word speciesism, it goes in-depth into why people subconscious label animals as species. On the contrary Richard York, “Humanity and Inhumanity: Toward a Sociology of the Slaughterhouse” has a different point of view. York speaks

Animal abuse is a serious topic that occurs every day. This happens every day, everywhere. Together people could change the world. Animal abuse is a major cause all around

Using Hammurabi’s Code as an example, the author describes the relationship between humans and animals as owner and property. As stated by Hammurabi’s Code, domesticated animals were “valuable property” and were subject to use by humans. Justinian’s code is also referenced, allowing humans access to any animal that is captured. These prehistoric codes have shaped the mindset of many, leading humans to believe in a “natural” superiority over animals. This superiority has reduced the status of animals from living, breathing, wildlife, to simple property. Per the “Laws” chapter, this superior mindset is not a new concept.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” The social issue of animal rights first arose in the 1970s; since then the animal rights movement has gained momentum and a considerable amount of followers “Animal Rights.” Organizations like PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) hold demonstrations and protests in the streets and outside businesses to denounce the maltreatment of animals. There are two sides on this issue, those who believe that the life of an animal is inferior to that of a human’s and those who deem that animals deserve to have a life free of human interruption “What Are Animal Rights.” Without animal rights, our society can be deemed unfettered by empathy and restrained by immoral values.

For many years humans have always used animals for anything. Billions of animals are being used in harmful ways every year, such as in foods, experiments and being held captive. Over the years, there have been many cases of animal abuse in the world. Some people do not pay any interest to what is going on in these animal attractions. In 2004, Sunstein suggested that animals must have their rights; therefore many people with factory farms were afraid that the administrations were going to embrace an animal protection. In the past years “many have come to view the struggle foranimal liberation as being on a par with other liberation struggles,” (Marcia Clemmitt). Scientists have noticed that animals do need freedom. For example farm animals are the ones who produce for our food. Cows, chickens, pigs, are the ones who humans kill for our appetite. Therefore farm animals are at risk, and people who eat them such as myself, do not realize the type of harm farmers put the animals through.

Animals have the right to equal consideration in regards to their being used for human needs as most people use animals for their own needs on a daily basis even if only indirectly whether to entertain us, or to attain the product we are using, or on our dinner plate. The controversy of the treatment of animals range from some activists and philosophers that are outspoken against animals being used by humans in any way for our own personal needs, while others are candid in their belief that animals are here solely for meeting our needs and have no rights at all. Although everyone is able to tailor their actions to fit their moral, ethical and individual beliefs, and many different categories of unique diets have come about from the freedom of defining personal standards it is a controversial topic. With vegetarian and vegan diets’, becoming more and more common deciding what is morally justifiable in respects to the treatment of animals is an essential issue for everyone. The dispute of animal rights is essentially focused on what rights animals deserve to have and how they should be treated in regards to being experimented on, for humans’ entertainment, and their being used as livestock.

For one to completely understand animal cruelty one must know how animal cruelty is categorized. Animal cruelty was first categorized as a symptom of conduct disorder by the American Psychiatric Association in 1987 (McPhedran; 2008). Conduct disorder is defined as “a repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior in which the basic rights of others are major age appropriate societal norms or rules are violated” (American Psychiatric Association; 1994 as cited as McPhedran; 2008). To be diagnosed with conduct disorder, a person must have at least 3 of the 15 symptoms of the disorder presented. Other symptoms of conduct disorder include persistent patterns of aggression towards humans, lying and deception, theft and/or robbery, and

Humans have always had a complicated relationship with non-human animals. This relationship has always benefitted the needs of humans, with little consideration for animals’ needs. Some animals are tortured for entertainment, some are butchered for food and others are taken from their habitat and family, and forced to be pets for humans. These are all examples of the ways humans have exploited animals for their own satisfaction. Hal Herzog’s essay “Animals Like Us” describes the complicated relationship that humans and animals have, and how difficult it is to determine what is ethical when dealing with animals. Jonathan Safran Foer makes a similar observation in his essay “The Fruits of Family Trees” of the ethical issues in the