Animal Aid

Animal rights is not about loving animals more than people, or putting their needs ahead of our own. It is about protecting animals from cruelty and unfair treatment - just as we would expect to be protected - and about trying not to do harm.

What rights for animals?

Animals obviously do not need exactly the same rights as we do. For instance, the right to vote in elections would be worthless to a parrot. On the other hand, the right not to be tortured, or killed - except where the person who kills is acting in self-defence - is as valuable to animals as it is to us.

How do we use animals?

Millions of animals suffer pain and misery because of humans. We experiment on them in laboratories. We rear and slaughter them for food. We take the skins off their backs and wear them as shoes, coats and sweaters. We hunt them for a jolly day out. We dump pets we no longer want. We imprison them in zoos and circuses to 'educate' and amuse ourselves. We pollute and destroy their natural environment.

Why care about animals?

Even today, some people think that animals are greatly inferior to humans and that they have no feelings or thoughts. This attitude can partly be blamed on the 18th century French scientist Rene Descartes, one of the first to experiment on animals. He argued that the squeals of pain from animals he cut open were mere noises from machines and not a sign of suffering.

Descartes still has his fans among some modern-day scientists. But it is now generally accepted that animals - just like humans - experience happiness, sadness, fear, physical pain, anger and boredom. We know that they usually enjoy the company of their own kind; that there is normally a close bond between mothers and their young; that young animals enjoy and learn from play and that animals develop friendships.

Are people more intelligent?

Animals cannot play the clarinet (but then neither can most people). Nor have they invented weapons of mass destruction. But they can do some amazing things that we can't. For instance, can you swing through the trees like an orang utan? Or sniff out a bone 100 yards away in the bushes, like the average dog? Calling it 'instinct' doesn't make it less remarkable.

Deciding how to treat other creatures on the grounds of intelligence is all wrong. Logically, doing so would mean that the most intelligent people would have the most rights and that those who were born intellectually disabled, or who are damaged by illness or accident, would have the least rights. That wouldn't be fair or humane.

Can animals communicate?

Scientific tests have proved that gorillas and chimpanzees can learn how to communicate in human language. But we don't need more experiments to prove that animals can express their emotions to each other and to us. Anybody with pet animals will already know that they can show us when they are nervous, hungry or thirsty and that they remember people and places they haven't seen for months or even years.

Pain and suffering

Above all, we know that, just like us, animals feel pain and fear. Have you ever heard of an animal who can be cut by a knife, or burnt by a flame and not feel it? This is why they deserve our protection. As the 18th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham pointed out:

'The question is not, can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But can they suffer?'

A lesson from history?

Similar excuses to those given for treating animals badly were once put forward to defend the exploitation of certain people. Slave owners argued that their slaves were unimportant and didn't deserve justice or equality because they were of a different race. African families were torn apart and hundreds of thousands of slaves suffered all kinds of abuse, humiliation and cruelty. They were worked to the point of collapse, even death. Is it so far-fetched to compare their fate with that of animals today?

Alice Walker, the well-known African-American writer, doesn't think so. She writes that:

'animals of the world exist for their own reason. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men'.

One great family

It was not until 1948 that the world's nations joined together to issue the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which said that all people should have freedom and respect whatever their colour, gender, religion or race.

Those who believe in animal rights think that animals deserve similar protection. The fact that there is still a great deal of human pain and suffering in the world does not excuse animal abuse or mean that we should not try to help animals.

Jeffrey Masson, When Elephants Weep:

'It is clear that animals form lasting friendships, are frightened of being hunted, have a horror of dismemberment [having their limbs torn apart], wish they were back in the safety of their den, despair for their mates, look out for and protect their children whom they love... They feel throughout their lives, just as we do.'

What kind of future?

Animal Aid is working towards a future where animals are free from the suffering caused by exploitation.

Our vision of the future is one where medical research is carried out with humane methods and not by hurting animals; where animals are no longer imprisoned in factory farms to produce cheap meat; where better use is made of the world's food resources so that fewer people will go hungry; where wild animals are no longer hounded to death or shot for sport, or stripped of their skins and teeth and tusks; where we are entertained and amused by human skills and not by animals forced to perform for us; where endangered animals are secure and protected within nature reserves and not held captive in cages; where natural habitats such as tropical rain-forests are preserved for the animals and people who live there, rather than plundered and exploited for short term profits; and where all living creatures are treated with respect and compassion.

Living without cruelty

A change in attitude can make all the difference. By making informed choices about what we buy and eat and how we look after our health, we can all help to improve the way animals are treated. By choosing to become vegetarians, we show food producers that we want no part of a system that breeds and kills hundreds of millions of animals for food every year. We can also help to influence how manufacturers test their products by only buying those which have not involved any animal experiments. All new conventional drugs and medicines are tested on animals. But by doing everything we can to keep ourselves fit and healthy, and exploring 'alternative' remedies, we will only need drugs when it is really necessary. If you want to help replace human wrongs with animals rights, the first step is to get informed.