Animal Rights/Welfare

    • Animal Rights/Welfare

      Do you believe in animal welfare or rights? 12
      1.  
        Animal rights (2) 17%
      2.  
        Animal welfare (10) 83%
      3.  
        Somewhere in between (0) 0%
      Do you believe in animal rights?

      What about animal welfare?

      Did you know there is a huge difference between the two? I'll admit, only a few days ago I didn't. I was that idiot who was saying "yea! I believe in animal rights!." I thought organizations like PETA (animal rights activists) were doing great things. Boy was I wrong.


      Animal rights: The belief that animals used for human purposes is morally and ethically wrong. Animals should not be used for food, clothing, recreation, research, or to harvest medical organs and fluid from. Belief that animals have the same rights as humans and that humans should care and protect animals.

      Basically, people who believe in animal rights believe that we shouldn't use animals, period. Not as pets, not as service animals, or for food. Think about how much we have benefited from animals. Try to think of a world where we didn't use animals for anything. Sounds bleak to me. Don't get me wrong.. I do understand some of the issues. I'll never be able to fully support testing on animals or using animals in circus acts.

      I would say that I am 1% animal rights activist and 99% animal welfare activist...
      Animal Welfare: The belief that animals should be treated in a humane manner. They should be provided with adequate housing, nutrition, disease prevention, and humane treatment and handling. Belief that animals can be used for food and research when no other alternatives exist. (That last sentence is probably controversial.)

      Don't be fooled by organizations such as the AWI (Animal Welfare Institute). They do not believe in animal welfare. They are all about animals rights and they use the word welfare to trick you when in fact they are a bunch of crazies.

      PETA is the worst animal rights group that I've heard about so far. I used to believe in the crap they talked about, but they're just a bunch of hypocrites. PETA doesn't save animals. They kill animals! In 2009, out of the 2,366 animals they received 8 were adopted out, 31 were transferred to other facilities, and 2,301 were euthanized. Meat is murder? Killing 2,301 helpless animals for no reason is murder.

      They target children with comic books and trading cards.

      The inside cover of these comic books are even worse. They tell kids things like "keep your pets away from your mommy because she will kill them."


      I wish I had known all of this sooner. So now I'm curious to see if I was the only one in the dark about this stuff.


      One last thing:



      Oh, I forgot to add an option for people who don't believe in any animals right/welfare type stuff. Bummer..
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      The post was edited 1 time, last by lcky ().

    • Re: Animal Rights/Welfare

      Well, i find it wrong how animals are treated in every way.
      I don't hate the taste of meat by any means, but i very much hate how animals are being killed just for us to have meat. And if this is so mandatory in our daily diet and nutrition, i'd not be alive right now as i rarely eat meat! Any form of abuse or testing should be banned!

    • Re: Animal Rights/Welfare

      I guess I believe in animal welfare. I don't support animal testing, but personally, if it was going to save my life or someone else's life, I'd rather an animal be tested than watch a human die because a cure could not be researched due to animal right limitations.

      And not using animals as service animals in my opinion is absurd. I guess there are two sides to this argument. You could say that it's cruel to bind an animal into "servitude" by making him work all day for, say, a blind man. But you could also say it's cruel to make a blind man live without the help of an animal, which are proven to be very useful to disabled persons.
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    • Re: Animal Rights/Welfare

      Fashion wrote:

      Well, i find it wrong how animals are treated in every way.
      I don't hate the taste of meat by any means, but i very much hate how animals are being killed just for us to have meat. And if this is so mandatory in our daily diet and nutrition, i'd not be alive right now as i rarely eat meat! Any form of abuse or testing should be banned!


      Is the way we kill animals any less humane than say,
      The way a snake strangles a chicken before it eats it?

      Humans were designed to eat meat. It is just the way things are.

    • Re: Animal Rights/Welfare

      artizhay wrote:

      I guess I believe in animal welfare. I don't support animal testing, but personally, if it was going to save my life or someone else's life, I'd rather an animal be tested than watch a human die because a cure could not be researched due to animal right limitations.

      And not using animals as service animals in my opinion is absurd. I guess there are two sides to this argument. You could say that it's cruel to bind an animal into "servitude" by making him work all day for, say, a blind man. But you could also say it's cruel to make a blind man live without the help of an animal, which are proven to be very useful to disabled persons.


      Dogs love being put to work. It is what they were bred for. They're much happier doing work than sitting around doing nothing, so that isn't a good argument.

      I've been following the story of man who came back from Iraq with PTSD and was.. well, still is disabled by it. He can't go into grocery stores without falling to the floor in a panic. Working with a service dog is starting to help him though. With the dog by his side, and after a few failed attempts, he was finally able to go in to a grocery store and buy something. The dog has given him and his family hope and I don't understand how anyone can label that as inhumane.
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    • Re: Animal Rights/Welfare

      animals have the same rights as humans and that humans should care and protect animals.


      Sorry no, animals are food, animals eat animals, we are animals, we eat and get eaten, it's called nature, been happening way before we even arrived here.
      Sure, I'm not the one killing my food, but neither are scavengers, if I absolutely had to kill to eat, I would, that's what I'm made for, I have a developed brain and thumbs to use tools and weapons to feed myself, and increase my life style.

      No one should ever feel guilty by eating animals, it's the way it's supposed to go.

      I do however agree that animal torture, and treating animals improperly is bad and who does such things should be punished, I'm also against wearing fur.

    • Re: Animal Rights/Welfare

      Dexter. wrote:

      Sorry no, animals are food, animals eat animals, we are animals, we eat and get eaten, it's called nature, been happening way before we even arrived here.
      Sure, I'm not the one killing my food, but neither are scavengers, if I absolutely had to kill to eat, I would, that's what I'm made for, I have a developed brain and thumbs to use tools and weapons to feed myself, and increase my life style.

      No one should ever feel guilty by eating animals, it's the way it's supposed to go.

      I do however agree that animal torture, and treating animals improperly is bad and who does such things should be punished, I'm also against wearing fur.

      I just watched your sig pic about 20 times and didn't even notice. XD

      And to add to that:
      Humans are essentially made to be like other animals. Just because we live a much more sophisticated and intelligent life doesn't mean we are different than other animals. Animals are made to hunt, eat, and reproduce. That is what humans do.
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    • Re: Animal Rights/Welfare

      Fashion wrote:

      Well, i find it wrong how animals are treated in every way.
      I don't hate the taste of meat by any means, but i very much hate how animals are being killed just for us to have meat. And if this is so mandatory in our daily diet and nutrition, i'd not be alive right now as i rarely eat meat! Any form of abuse or testing should be banned!


      I don't understand. If you hate how they're being used for meat, and yet you eat meat, that makes you a hypocrite. Eating meat ISN'T mandatory in your diet,hence vegans and vegetarians. Unless I misunderstood your post?




      “We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.”
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      The post was edited 1 time, last by Linda ().

    • Re: Animal Rights/Welfare

      lcky wrote:


      PETA is the worst animal rights group that I've heard about so far. I used to believe in the crap they talked about, but they're just a bunch of hypocrites. PETA doesn't save animals. They kill animals! In 2009, out of the 2,366 animals they received 8 were adopted out, 31 were transferred to other facilities, and 2,301 were euthanized. Meat is murder? Killing 2,301 helpless animals for no reason is murder.

      I'd call myself animal welfare, I'm not so much into the rights thing. As far as testing and stuff goes, I'm with artizhay. And while I try to limit my intake of meat, etc., it's more for health & environmental reasons.

      That being said, I think PETA gets a worse rep than it deserves (I don't support them, however). There are tons of celebrities associated with PETA who aren't crazy. People really target the shelter thing without looking at much else; I mean, it's a shelter. It's difficult to take in that many animals, finance it, and get them all adopted out again, and we have no idea how old or how healthy the animals are that PETA does take in. It's drastic, but it's also not "for no reason."

      The one thing I do really dislike about them is their advertising. It does get them noticed but I can't see it being in any positive light. It's extreme, it's gruesome, it's often inaccurate, and sometimes even dehumanizing, especially to women. And, as you said, they blatantly target kids.
      That, and they've been known to fund the ALF, a pretty extremist group who partake in a lot of legal activity.

      Fashion wrote:

      And if this is so mandatory in our daily diet and nutrition, i'd not be alive right now as i rarely eat meat!

      Right! :) You can get everything you need without eating any animal products. The only things you'd have to watch are Vitamin D and B12, but you can find things fortified with those, too.

      artizhay wrote:


      Humans are essentially made to be like other animals. Just because we live a much more sophisticated and intelligent life doesn't mean we are different than other animals. Animals are made to hunt, eat, and reproduce. That is what humans do.

      The fact that we are able to live a more sophisticated and intelligent life, or the fact that we're able to have this discussion at all right now, does indeed make us different than other animals. That's why it's such a big issue! We do much more than hunt, eat, and reproduce, and fewer and fewer people actually do the first one. And for the record, not all animals hunt. ;)

    • Re: Animal Rights/Welfare

      I converted to vegetarianism (excluding fish) about a week ago. I'd been thinking quite deeply about my relation to meat for some time before and one night this reasoning popped in my head.

      I have a pet rabbit called Nutmeg. Now, like most people with any pet, I knew that I couldn't kill Nutmeg for food in an ordinary situation, nor would I want to eat him if I'd known his life had been cut short. I had, however, been quite happy in the past to eat rabbit pie made up of wild rabbits that had been shot by my uncle in the countryside.
      So what was the difference between Nutmeg and any wild rabbit? The difference was that I had a relationship with the former. And if a relationship was possible with Nutmeg, then a relationship was possible with a wild rabbit (remember, domesticated rabbits had to come from somewhere). And if this was the case, I was essentially killing and eating wild rabbits and feeling comfortable because I had avoided building up relationships with them. No one good would dream of prejudging someone without getting to know them, and in a way this was the same thing with the rabbits. In wartime, it's because enemy sides do not build relationships with each other that they feel able to end the lives of their fellow human beings. That stinks. And if that stinks, then killing anything with whom a relationship is possible stinks too.

      There are plenty of Western meat-eaters who find the Asian idea of eating cats and dogs repulsive, because the majority of us know that it's possible to build a human-cat/dog relationship. I simply took this logic and extended to to other pets, like rabbits and guinea pigs, and then onwards to traditional meat products. It's quite possible for humans to grow and love chickens, pigs, cows and sheep.
      Fish (and other seafood) are harder, which is why I exclude them, although if I was offered something like carp, which can become quite friendly and tame, I would probably turn it down.

      This is quite a personal thing for me, probably one the most personal moral choices I've ever made and so for that reason I'm not assertive about it at all. I can see the merits in the Humans Are Animals argument, although I must say I've never heard of a carnivore in the animal kingdom kill and eat something it had a relationship with. I stand to be corrected though.
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    • Re: Animal Rights/Welfare

      I've never considered rabbits to be food, myself. I know some people eat rabbit, but as rabbit meat is not commonly eaten in my corner of the world and I'm not used to it, it sounds repulsive. :D I guess that goes along the same lines of dog meat. Dogs are food to some, and pets to others. It may be furry, but if it's not on the list of common "farm animals", i.e. cows, pigs, and chickens...then I'm hesitant to eat it.

      I could never give up fish though. No other meat (or any other food for that matter) has such a DELICIOUS irresistible flavour. :drool:

    • Re: Animal Rights/Welfare

      Esmo wrote:

      I converted to vegetarianism (excluding fish) about a week ago.


      I HATE when people say this. My aunt and cousin did this too, and it drives me insane. You're not a full vegetarian, you're a semi- vegetarian.




      “We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.”
      -J.K. Rowling

    • Re: Animal Rights/Welfare

      Scaredycrow wrote:


      That being said, I think PETA gets a worse rep than it deserves (I don't support them, however). There are tons of celebrities associated with PETA who aren't crazy. People really target the shelter thing without looking at much else; I mean, it's a shelter. It's difficult to take in that many animals, finance it, and get them all adopted out again, and we have no idea how old or how healthy the animals are that PETA does take in. It's drastic, but it's also not "for no reason."


      I don't think so at all. I think PETA gets a better rep than they deserve. The celebrities are absolutely crazy for supporting PETA. By supporting PETA you support the ALF and by supporting the ALF you support terrorism. Go read some of Ingrid Newkirk's quotes. She's a looney running a group of loonies. Those celebrities are either ignorantly supporting an organization that lies in their advertising or they are just crazy extremists.

      PETA claims to be no kill. They take in those animals from people and tell them that their animal will be adopted out. Instead, they euthanize them. PETA has enough money for a $9,730 walk-in freezer. Why the heck would they need a freezer?? To store all those dead animals.

      In 2005, 35 adoptable animals were euthanized by 2 PETA employees. After killing the animals with lethal drugs from their "death kit", the animals were put into garbage bags and thrown into a dumpster. I'd show pictures, but they gruesome and very sad. If you're curious, google it. If you find the pictures you can see that the poor little puppies were in great condition.
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    • Re: Animal Rights/Welfare

      I think my opinion is diffrent depending on the animal in question. If we could learn about a particulat disease from studying a dog, then i would want that dog to be tested. However, i am a dog lover and would not want to eat my dog or any other dog, and i would not want them to be tested for no reason, or to ever be treated inhumanly. I also believe that alot of the definitions that were in the original post were opinionated. in short, testing a pig is dififfrent from testing a dog, you can find benifits im sure from testing both, and two diffrent people would have very diffrent opinions on esting a dog and pig. I think it all depends...