Animal rights’ is an issue that is ignored and assumed by human beings who consider them insignificant creatures. Tom Regan, in his article about animal rights, takes us through some aspects of human and animal life and the way we ought to treat them. According to him, what has mostly been considered abuse of the animals is a small portion of the root cause of such issues. He emphasizes on the fact that animal abuse is beyond slaughtering them for food or using them for sports or such kind of things. The root cause of all the abuse that animals are exposed to is the attitude that we have towards animals. This is seen more specifically on domestic animals, which are mostly kept as pets (Regan 93). Even though pets are shown much love and given the best food, this is not done in accordance to what they deserve but rather what is good for their host. The main reason a person will show such protection towards an animal is not for the benefit of the animal but for his or her own benefit.
Regan has brought out the issue to imply that what we do for animals at the expense of others is what will not be legally acceptable if we did the same for people. The perfect example he used to elaborate the idea was about his aunty who had vast resources that were almost idle. According to him, the wealth could be of more benefit to the less fortunate in the society only if she released it. In his pursuit to put the wealth to service, he could easily think of killing his aunt after all, there are other suffering people who matter more than she does. It is rather obvious that we would all disagree to the fact that we take away an individuals life just to benefit the life of other people that we feel are more significant. This is similar to what we do for animals; many times, we allow them to go through torture simply because we want some other people to benefit from them. We never realize there are other options that we have which we could adopt and give the animals the freedom they long for.
The level of protection that animals need is to be equal to that being granted to human beings. The society takes advantage of the fact that animals cannot speak for themselves and expose them to all forms of danger and torture. Even though the author recognizes that some people go through some sought of torture, the attention they are given which includes liberating them and punishing those who hurt them, torturing animals has been accepted as harmless. It is almost impossible for any person who has been caught violating other persons’ rights to go unpunished yet countless of animals are exposed to torture (Regan 54). A degree of measure is always taken when handling a human that is contrary to what animals are given. For instance, despite realizing the importance that animals have towards us, we do not take the measures to provide them with basic facilities such as good shelter, clean environment and quality medical services. We may never bother to hire an ambulance or even a flying doctor service to help a sick animal. In fact, when they reach to such a level of critical illness, we leave them for the dead or even try to get their skin, teeth or such valuables to adorn ourselves. An example is of how animals such as the elephant are treated when killed or dead. Human beings ignore the physical and emotional pain they go through when they are poached for their husks and teeth just for aesthetic value. No matter the circumstances in which a human being may die, none of their body parts is retained for its aesthetic value unless it is for research or medical reasons.
Tom Regan is simply trying to tell us to empathize with animals just as we do to fellow human beings. If we cannot dare use a person’s teeth for ornaments, then why should we take pleasure in doing so for animals? Even if animals have to be killed for food, why should it not be done in a less painful way rather than tying them up and allowing them to see a knife pass through their throats? If we have euthanasia for the aged and the terminally ill, why not also have a similar one for the animals that we must kill. Humans are not sensitive to the physical and emotional pain caused to animals and mainly think they have no feelings. It is ironic that we are used to yells of a dog that has been knocked and that of a bird that is being mishandled when we would spend years in a court finding justice if the same were done to us or those near us (Regan 79). What is required for human beings is to change how we view animals and treat them as living organisms that need to be loved and accepted. We are likely to benefit more from animals if we went out of our way and thought of how they could be feeling. Animal rights laws should be more practical and measures taken to ensure their safety and wellbeing.
Work cited
Regan, Tom. Animal rights, human wrongs: an introduction to moral philosophy. New York: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2003.
