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Animal Rights Essay

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"Animal rights - moral or legal entitlements attributed to nonhuman animals, usually because of the complexity of their cognitive, emotional, and social lives or their capacity to experience physical or emotional pain or pleasure." (Britannia encyclopedia online, n.d.). The definition of animal rights is so clear to us. Human rights need to be protected, so do animal rights. In 1976, in New York City, thousands of cat lovers were beaten when they heard a painful test to be taken for pets’ sexual behavior. Henry Spira, the leader of animal rights movement, helped to mobilize a protest and marked the beginning of the contemporary animal rights movement. The group took dramatic and public action to express their concerns and anger. They were …show more content…

160). Secondly, 17 to 70 million animals are tortured and killed every year in U.S. laboratories. The Animal Welfare Act requires the report of the number certain animal used in experiments; therefore, it is unknown how many animals, which are excluded from the list of the Act, die during experiments (Animal Experimentation, n.d.). The purpose of these animal experiments varies. The four main categories can be identified: "medical research, product testing, psychological research, and military testing" (Rowlands, 2002, p. 124). For example, a dog would be cut open and its organ would be speculated when it is still alive as a demonstration of scientific methods to the medical students (Monamy, 2000, p. 9). Animals have feelings of pain although their signs of pain are different from humans’ due to "the existence of endogenous opiates" (Dolan, 1999, pp. 155-156). While people receive all the benefits from animal experiments, they are rarely concerned about the pain and suffering of animal.

What animal rights should people respect? Legal rights and moral rights are subject to the animal rights Firstly, the most well-known and understandable rights are the legal rights. "Salmond, the learned jurist, defined legal rights as ' an interest recognized and protected by law, respect for which is a duty and disregard of which is a wrong'" (Dolan, 1999, p. 138). In 1966,

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