December 09, 2009
Why Animal Rights?
Categories Vegetarianism, Copy-Paste Comments (1)
Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos. We never considered the impact of these actions on the animals involved. For whatever reason, you are now asking the question: Why should animals have rights?
Source: PETA
Text from PETA, please visit their website.
For Animals
Animals on factory farms are treated like meat, milk, and egg machines. Chickens have their sensitive beaks seared off with a hot blade, and male cattle and pigs are castrated without any painkillers. All farmed chickens, turkeys, and pigs spend their brief lives in dark and crowded warehouses, many of them so cramped that they can't even turn around or spread a single wing. They are mired in their own waste, and the stench of ammonia fills the air. Animals raised for food are bred and drugged to grow as large as possible as quickly as possible—many are so heavy that they become crippled under their own weight and die within inches of their water supply. More...
Animals Used for Clothing
It may come from a sheep, goat, or Tibetan antelope. It may be called "wool," "mohair," "pashmina," or "cashmere." But no matter what you call it, it means bad news for the animal it came from.
In the wool industry, just weeks after birth, lambs' ears are punched, their tails are chopped off, and the males are castrated, all without anesthetics. To prevent "flystrike" (a maggot infestation caused by wrinkly skin, which was bred into the sheep so that they would have more wool), Australian ranchers perform a barbarous operation called "mulesing," which involves carving huge strips of flesh off the backs of unanesthetized lambs' legs. More...
Animal Testing
Have you ever wondered how many animals suffer in labs? It's a good question. Because there are so many animals in laboratories and records are not kept for all animals, estimates of the number of animals tortured and killed annually in U.S. laboratories vary widely but are in the millions. More...
Animals Used for Entertainment
Animals don't want to ride bicycles, stand on their heads, balance on balls, or jump through rings of fire. Sadly, they have no choice. Trainers use abusive tools, like whips and electric prods, and force them to perform. More...
Animal Exploitation
Every year, more than 3 million dogs, cats, birds, rabbits, and other animals are euthanized because they were born into a world that does not have enough homes for them. For every one companion animal who lives indoors with a human family and receives the attention, health care, and emotional support that he or she needs, there are thousands just barely surviving. Millions of domestic animals never know a kind human touch and live hard lives on the street before dying equally hard deaths. More...