{"id":81154,"date":"2016-10-21T18:37:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-21T22:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.peta.org\/about-peta\/why-animal-rights\/"},"modified":"2024-09-27T14:55:14","modified_gmt":"2024-09-27T21:55:14","slug":"why-animal-rights","status":"publish","type":"about","link":"https:\/\/www.peta.org\/about-peta\/why-peta\/why-animal-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Animal Rights?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div contenteditable=\"false\" class=\"wp-block-beyondwords-player\"><div data-beyondwords-player=\"true\" contenteditable=\"false\"><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"Style1\"><strong>Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos. Many of us bought our beloved \u201cpets\u201d at pet shops and kept beautiful birds in cages. We wore wool and silk, ate McDonald\u2019s burgers, and fished. 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?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"video-player\"><div class=\"widescreen-wrapper\"><iframe title=\"RZA: We&#039;re Not Different in Any Important Way\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pQasxDRGQCU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In his book <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/48uohED\"><em>Animal Liberation Now<\/em><\/a>, Peter Singer states that the basic principle of equality does not require equal or identical <em>treatment<\/em>; it requires equal <em>consideration<\/em>. This is an important distinction when talking about animal rights. People often ask if animals should have rights, and quite simply, the answer is \u201cYes!\u201d Animals surely deserve to live their lives free from suffering and exploitation. Few books maintain their relevance\u2014and have remained continuously in print\u2014nearly 50 years after they were first published. Since its original publication in 1975, this groundbreaking work has awakened millions of people to the existence of \u201cspeciesism,\u201d our society\u2019s systematic disregard of nonhuman animals, inspiring a worldwide movement to transform our attitudes toward animals and eliminate the cruelty we inflict on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jeremy Bentham, the founder of the reforming utilitarian school of moral philosophy, stated that when deciding on a being\u2019s rights, \u201cThe question is not \u2018Can they reason?\u2019 nor \u2018Can they talk?\u2019 but \u2018Can they suffer?\u2019\u201d In that passage, Bentham points to the capacity for suffering as the vital characteristic that gives a being the right to equal consideration. The capacity for suffering is not just another characteristic like the capacity for language or higher mathematics. All animals have the ability to suffer in the same way and to the same degree that humans do. They feel pain, pleasure, fear, frustration, loneliness, and parental love. Whenever we consider doing something that would interfere with their needs, we are morally obligated to take them into account.<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/animal-liberation-now-on-table-with-tea-min-scaled.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.peta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/animal-liberation-now-on-table-with-tea-min-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"animal liberation now on table with tea\"\/><\/a>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n<p>Supporters of animal rights believe that animals have an inherent worth\u2014a value completely separate from their usefulness to humans. We believe that every creature with a will to live has a right to live free from pain and suffering. Animal rights is not just a philosophy\u2014it is a social movement that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.peta.org\/news\/is-peta-extremist\/\">challenges society\u2019s traditional view<\/a> that all nonhuman animals exist solely for human use. As PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk has said, \u201cWhen it comes to pain, love, joy, loneliness, and fear, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. Each one values his or her life and fights the knife.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=u4FSgNv5Vik\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Watch a video with Ingrid Newkirk from the 2015 Animal Rights National Conference here.&nbsp;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Only prejudice allows us to deny others the rights that we expect to have for ourselves. Whether it\u2019s based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or species, prejudice is morally unacceptable. If you wouldn\u2019t eat a dog, why eat a pig? Dogs and pigs have the same capacity to feel pain, but it is prejudice based on species that allows us to think of one animal as a companion and the other as dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"practicalGuide\">\n<div class=\"practicalGuideCushion\">\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Take vital steps to cut thoughtless cruelty to animals out of your life and to educate others around you. Check out the most comprehensive book on animal rights available today! In <em>The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights<\/em>, PETA president Ingrid E. Newkirk provides hundreds of tips, stories, and resources. It&#8217;s PETA&#8217;s must-have guide to animal rights. <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/48voA1R\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Also available for the Kindle!<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-16018d1d wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-large-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-petablue-background-color has-background wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/48voA1R\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Order Your Copy of PETA&#8217;s Practical Guide to Animal Rights!<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><em>PETA is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide websites with a means to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div><input class=\"fooboxshare_post_id\" type=\"hidden\" value=\"81154\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Take vital steps to cut thoughtless cruelty to animals out of your life and to educate others around you. Check out the most comprehensive book on animal rights available today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":870302,"parent":81168,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","beyondwords_generate_audio":"1","beyondwords_integration_method":"","beyondwords_project_id":"45142","beyondwords_content_id":"b2023266-a246-4795-a5bb-6f9088f2fc1e","beyondwords_preview_token":"f7cd0e0b-2766-4daf-8ef9-4d553839d30d","beyondwords_player_content":"","beyondwords_player_style":"","beyondwords_language_code":"","beyondwords_language_id":"","beyondwords_title_voice_id":"","beyondwords_body_voice_id":"","beyondwords_summary_voice_id":"","beyondwords_error_message":"","beyondwords_disabled":"","beyondwords_delete_content":"","beyondwords_podcast_id":"b2023266-a246-4795-a5bb-6f9088f2fc1e","beyondwords_hash":"","publish_post_to_speechkit":"","speechkit_hash":"","speechkit_generate_audio":"","speechkit_project_id":"","speechkit_podcast_id":"","speechkit_error_message":"","speechkit_disabled":"","speechkit_access_key":"","speechkit_error":"","speechkit_info":"","speechkit_response":"","speechkit_retries":"","speechkit_status":"","speechkit_updated_at":"","_speechkit_link":"","_speechkit_text":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[50,46],"placement":[532],"class_list":["post-81154","about","type-about","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","category-general-animal-rights","placement-about-why-peta"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why Animal Rights? 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