XBCOM/275
January 27, 2014
Debate Paper
Animal Cruelty Animal cruelty is a growing social issue that many people do not understand. Each type of abuse has displayed certain patterns of behavior that we can use to help understand more about why people commit the crimes they do today. Animal cruelty is broken down into two main categories: active and passive. Active cruelty implies malicious intent, where a person had deliberately and intentionally causes harm to an animal. I want to argue to argue for the prevention of animal cruelty because it’s inhuman. Many reasons are given for the various cases of animal abuse, but no reason is understandable if it’s to do with inflicting pain on other living creatures. Animals like humans, feel pain. One large factor of the unnecessary deaths of creatures is animal experimentation. Do you know that shampoo you use was probably forced down the throat of a rabbit, cat, or maybe even a dog? Each year millions of animals are used to test how safe and effective products, such as cosmetics are. Seventy million animals are killed annually in U.S. laboratories. Animal experimenters attempt to recreate human diseases on healthy animals through deliberate and violent methods. Substances are injected into the animal, chemicals are forces-fed, irritants are rubbed into the eyes and skin, and even testing of animals fetuses is involved. 50% of the animals die after two to three weeks of the testing and the rest are left to suffer. Dog fighting became prevalent in the U.S. after the Civil War, with professional pits proliferating in the 1860s. Also was a source of entertainment for police officers and firemen. Today dog fighting has been reported in urban. Suburban and rural settings in all regions of the country. It’s been estimated that there are 900 to 2,000 new cases every year of animal hoarding in the US, with a quarter of a million animals falling victim. Over 100 millions animals such as mice, rats, dogs, rabbits, monkeys, birds and others are killed in the U.S. laboratories for chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics testing every year. Every major circus that uses animals has been cited for violating the minimal standards of care of the Unites States Animal Welfare. The exotic pet trade is a multi-billion dollar industry in the U.S. and while some wild pets have been bred in captivity. Many are taken directly from their native habitats. The stress of being violently removed from their homes causes a number of these animals to die prematurely.
Many people feel that animals have no rights and are here solely for our use. However, humans are animals too, we shouldn’t take advantage of other species just because they don’t have the ability to reason like us. The most disgusting example of animal’s abuse is the use of innocent animals in gruesome lab experiments.
Animals have the right to a good life just as humans do. Scientific experimentation on animals causes them a great deal of pain, even if they can’t express it. Throughout history several debates have been made regarding the questions about animal cruelty, the main one being “people have rights and animals do not”. Even though animals cannot talk in our language to tell us it hurts, science shows us that cruelty and pain, hurts. When a dog is in pain it snaps, yelps, nips, and tries to get away. Most animals will do this in response to pain just as most human scream and pull away. Does the face that we can verbalize and say “you are hurting me” mean that we should be protected and animals should not?
Animal Cruelty is which is also called animal abuse or animal neglect. It’s the human infliction of suffering of harm upon non human animals, for purpose other than self defense or survival. Animal cruelty can be really bad thing for just innocent animals. It can be as simple as a harmful abuse or failure to take care of your animal. Abuse can be with your pet, farm animals or wildlife, they can suffer terribly.