Do you think animals have rights?

I believe that animals have *some* rights, as living creatures we share this world with. Wild animals have the right to be left in peace and not harassed needlessly in their own territory. I feel they have a right to the wilderness in which they live. I believe animals we have domesticated have the right to our protection and to comfortable, healthy lives. Regardless of whether or not they've been domesticated for pets or for food. They are still alive, they still have thoughts and can feel pain and discomfort and illness. And they have a right to our protection - we took them from the wild for our purposes. We have a responsibility to them. I eat meat. I eat it without guilt. We are at the top of the food chain, and we have utilized the natural world for our benefit. We have that power. But that power also gives us a responsibility to our own resources and the creatures we've taken into our society - and those that maintain the ecosystem we need to survive.

I think that animals definitely have rights. They have the right to be treated humanely and with compassion. I am not a vegetarian, but I do buy meat that is not factory farmed and I am happy to pay more money for it. I wonder why you sound so hostile towards animal rights activists. Are you trying to stir the pot so to speak? I question your second statement. You don't think that we kill each other? Do you really think that we give everyone an equal opportunity in life? I don't know what planet you're living on! :-D I encourage you to read up on current events and also about factory farming. I think it might open up your eyes to the injustices faced every day by animals *and* human beings.

You are a very cruel and rude person. Animals do have some rights too. THey are living beings. If they all die then humans die too. If you have even a little bit of knowledge in science then you will know that animals help us to survive and without animals we will die. So they deserve to live too.

Animals certainly do have rights. However, let me explain. I'm all for animal rights, I'm against animal abuse, but I still eat meat. I definitely won't stop eating it. I know that sounds horrible, but my logic here is, as long as the animals are killed humanely. Don't drag their deaths out, don't torture them before they die, or torture them while they die.

Animals have the right to live, as much as humans do. If they don't, then why do they need to eat, breathe, drink, reproduce...etc? But then, since these creatures are placed under humans (since God knows when), we took that as a signal for us to do anything on them as we please. We kill animals, but maybe it is justifiable if the reason is only SURVIVAL. Other than that, it is not supposed to be acceptable. Other people use animals for recreation... e.g. cockfighting. They let the roosters kill each other just to bring pleasure to the afficionados... God bless the chickens.

I believe animals do have rights in a way. It is definately wrong to be cruel to animals because they have feelings and can feel pain. Just because something isn't as advanced as you, dosen't mean you can bring it pain, for fun. This brings me to hunting. I think hunting for sport is wrong, but if it is your only food source, it is acceptable then. If you are only doing it for sport, you go out and say, shoot a deer, just for the hell of it. You take away part of a valuable part of an ecosystem, you take away a "family member" from another deer. I think that is just all wrong. I think the beef industry is just fine because they kill the cows humanely and painless. We are using almost every bit of that cow to better ourselves.

What you are saying is absolutely wrong. Every living being has rights and this means that even plants have rights. GOD has created everyone for some special purpose like plants to give us Oxygen. But, we human beings are quite stupid to not to understand this and we would do anything which would be in our advantage. So we are just cutting down trees irrespect of the fact that this is increasing the pollution and one day evn life would vanish from earth. In the same way even animals have some purpose. They provide us with fossils and can be our friends. Only because an animal cannot say and express his feelings we deal with them so cruelly. Just imagine that someone is hitting you and you cannot even express your hurt because you cannot speak. How will you feel in this situation?

Maybe we aren't top of the food chain. There have been people killed and eaten by animals in the past. I don't believe in that whole "we are humans, so we rule the entire world" theory. We, humans, have caused so many animals to be permanently extinct. We've torn down their habitats, killed them (not for food), tortured them, etc. I do believe animals have rights. I am not a vegetarian however, and don't believe anything is wrong with animals being food. Animals feed on other animals. It's life.

You just answered your own question! "Rights" are only as good as when they can be enforced by the procurer of the rights. Which means simply that when humans say they have "rights", they can voice their opinions and their thinking and see that the "rights" are enforced. Animals cannot do that. They are not created with the same form of intelligence as humans. Humans have free will. Animals function on instinct - a fixed form of intelligence that is already in their system. They can't change their destiny, question their future, (they have no future), or debate their way of life, which only humans can do. Animals do not have a say in anything other than what the creator has put into them as "instinct".

all creatures have right to live love and fun no can expell that

First of all, I think you're giving humans too much credit when you talk of how 'intelligent' we are. We are the only animal on this planet who destroys their own ecosystem and the ecosystems of our fellow creatures... and as far as being 'on top' of the food chain, I think you're wrong... I'd like to see you go hand to hand with a tiger, bear, or shark and see who wins out. I am a vegetarian. I do not eat corpse, period, regardless of whose corpse it is. There are a number of very intelligent reasons for befriending animals and opposing slaughter, namely better health and not contributing to greenhouse gasses and deforestation. I love how you called me an 'idiot' for my beliefs... hopefully I'll still be frolicking with my animal friends while you have a colon full of rotting flesh... and I'm a farm girl, so I credit my pro-animal attitudes to living and playing around horses, sheep, goats, pigs, rabbits, dogs, etc. my entire life. I would encourage you to look at the beauty and variety of creatures we share the world with and get off your high horse... who said being human was so great anyway? Many, many animals are bigger, stronger, faster, more beautiful and more loving than lots of people I've met... and I'd hang out with my best dog friend over someone like you any day! Stupid animal rights activists... ha! As long as a being is able to feel, I will be compassionate towards it... and most 'activists' just want slaughter to be more humane... how would you like to be skinned alive? It happens... my hometown is home of the number 2 pork plant in the country, my father manages a barn there... so this stupid vegetarian knows what she's talking about... And as far as humans 'saving ourselves from killing one another'... that's ridiculous. Humans are the only species actively assisting nature in our own destruction (war) sounds REAL intelligent to me.

animals have right and they should be trated with respect too

Animals moste DEFINITELY have rights, and i fight for them. i am an animal rights activist and will be until they day i die. It is people like you that have effed up our world so much.

Lol you are so funny. We didn't think up "rights" we just found a way to express them in words. Every member of the animal kingdom has a civil right, and amongst themselves they know what they are. That's how they have survived so long on the food chain of life. When you see a pack of wolves, their will be certain protocols that each animal will have to follow. They will all have their duties and their actions and success/failure will pre-determine the outcome for the entire pack. Should one of them not follow this protocol, the others will shun the wolf and if it's totally necessary would probably kill it. Why do they do this?? All pack animals are the same. It's because they understand their "rights" within that group. They do not know the word "rights" of course, and will express their knowledge in a different way to ours. So don't be so ignorant and arrogant that the human way is the only way. Ever thought that we might all be wrong? Probably not because we as humans are generally pig-headed about these things and unbelievably arrogant (some more than others). The fact that some of us have noticed and expressed the animal "rights" is a vision of our ability to communicate. Nothing more, nothing less. You should really sit down and think about what the world means and why we are "ALL" here (not just the humans.. but the plants and the other animals too). All living creatures have the god given right to live. That's factotum number one. And for that reason, all animals and plants first priority is survival of their species. That's the way of nature. You understand this right? Love and light.

yes animals do have rights as they too are living creature's . but there rights are less commpared to human. ya i do agree that animal rights activist are stupid.

I believe in animal rights to some degree. I believe that it is not right to beat and animal or torture an animal and I believe that they have a right for us to feed them and take care of them because most can not survive any other way. But I do believe that some animals were put on this earth for us to eat and that it is only natural to eat em!

yes it oes have rights !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!of coures thry have :((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

Of course animals have rights. every living thing with a souls, which i think animals do have souls, should have rights.

yes he have to rights & we care about them

I think animals should have rights. You say they shouldn't have them, because humans made up rights and laws. Now, we made these laws to save ourselves from being killed? I don't know where you live, but I definitely think people still get murdered. So maybe we're not good law makers? That's really not the point. I don't eat meat, but that's my choice. I understand your whole food chain point and all. But when it comes to animal testing, on products that mice are never going to use... I think they should have rights. I've never walked outside and saw a bunny wearing lipstick. So I don't understand why makeup companies test on animals, instead of testing on something that is actually going to be wearing the product.