Why Care About Animal Rights?

I often ask myself why I got myself embroiled in animal advocacy in the first place, because it's pretty much a thankless task to advocate for animals. Even in the 21^st century, the majority of people are more interested in pursuing or protecting their own rights and interests than advocating for the rights of their fellow animals. In fact, they criticize those of us who do so, claiming that our first duty is to help our fellow humans, that we're somehow being disloyal to our own kind. My answer to that is that we can do both, and that animal rights is not in competition with human rights, any more than women's rights or blacks' rights or children's rights were in competition with white men's rights. In fact, I believe that once achieved, animal rights will complement, not detract from, human rights. If we get into the habit of considering the well-being of other species, what will naturally follow is that humans will treat each other better also. Who knows? Maybe wars will become a thing of the past. But we're a long, long way from that kind of Utopia.

All over the globe, every single minute, nonhuman animals are being tormented and killed in many different ways. It's easy to enslave animals, who are largely defenseless against our brains, weapons and superior technology. I've tried to shine a light on some of the more egregious examples of cultural exploitation of animals, such as the Hindu Gadhimai Mela and the Muslim Eid Al-Adha animal sacrifices, the American Thanksgiving, and the Zulu Ukushwama bull-killing ritual. But animal abuse is not confined to any particular religion, culture or part of the world. It's endemic, some would say epidemic.

The western world likes to consider itself more enlightened than the east in its treatment of animals, but the truth is that animal cruelty is rampant here too, lurking in the institutionalized industries of factory farming and biomedical research, as well as in zoos, circuses, rodeos, bullfighting, dog fighting, fox hunting, greyhound racing, sport and trophy hunting, horse racing, fur farming, trapping and countless other activities and events that routinely use and abuse animals. There's a lot of money to be made from exploiting animals, and a lot of greedy people lined up to collect it.

Humans have an unlimited capacity to rationalize their way out of bad behavior. It's not that most of us are evil, but that we've been taught that the end justifies the means when it comes to animals, and we don't question that (if it was OK with our parents, it's OK with us). We don't want to be considered weird and lose our friends, do we, if we protest the circus or decide to go vegan?

I see Homo sapiens as still evolving, physically, mentally and morally. We have the power, more than any other species, to radically change our traditional ways of doing things. Regardless of the pressures we all come under, the reality is that none of us is stuck in ideological mud, unable to escape. We don't have to continue traditions and practices that are harmful to our fellow animals. We can replace them with new traditions that honor these creatures, who have just as much right to live out their lives as we do. Why don't more of us do that?

As the end of the year approaches, I think about how I can awaken my readers to the importance of animal rights for all us creatures, great and small, and get them to expand their circle of compassion to include not only their family pets but also the animals at their shelter; the circus animals who are beaten into submission; the zoo and marine park animals imprisoned for no crime; the farmed animals who lead short, wretched lives; the lab animals who live their entire painful lives in cages; the hunted animals whose habitats are shrinking daily; the racing animals who are slaughtered after a brief career; the ranch animals abused and killed at rodeos. All I can do is continue presenting a strong case for the animals, and I will endeavor to do just that.