only in the eyes of the fanatics...animal welfare is good but animal rights is ridiculous. We have people living in cardboard boxes and others losing their homes and PETA is trying to pass legislation to keep cows from being embarrassed about being milked...give me a break!

Animal abuse is bad, but lets face it, there are plenty of more important issues to deal with.

We must be certain that animals are treated humanely. Animals have no rights, per se. No animal can go to court, or own property, or perform any other function that we associate with rights. Animal rights is a fantasy of ignorant pantheistic druids or other deluded neo-pagans.

Being at the top of the food chain gets to our heads. Now that we are calling the shots lets hope we make educated decisions regarding our animal community instead of individuals assuming knowledge about the degree of consciousness different animals embody. Who says that we are bright enough to recognise intelligence in all forms we are no gods. We have done very well to make our way to the top of the food chain with little to no animals threatening our extinction now. Yet we as a whole haven't dropped the habbit of only thinking of ourselves inhabiting this planet. It does take quite an adjustment of prospective to redirect thoughts revolving around our own quality of life, towards steping up the par of lives surrounding us. We are at the point where we can decide whether or not they exist. I really don't think that's our choice to make. Plus it actually increases happiness when we are able to observe wildlife and animals exist naturally in our environments. Lets hope we get WISE.

It would be a dead planet without them.

I am all for animal rights. I read somewhere that a PETA official called humans the blight of the earth and guess what? I think PETA is right.

Animals do have rights. It takes a pretty sad individual to make hateful remarks about innocent animals. There have been a couple of very uncalled for and sick statements on this issue. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: anyone that is mean and hateful towards animals will also do the same to people.

I care more about animal rights than gay rights. If 2 gays want to screw each other do it at home, but don't complain that you're treated unfairly! Why should they get tax breaks!? Keep fighting the strong fight Biscuit!

I cannot believe this. Animals do have rights. Don't animals also have feelings? Don't animals get hurt? Sure our ancestors killed animals and used them for a number of things but we don't don't actually need animals for all that stuff anymore! I don't think that it's fair to treat animals like they have no feelings whatsoever. animals are being totured because ofb selfish reasons. There is also the fact that if animals were created to be slaughtered for clothing and food and all that then there might as well be no animals if they were just meant to be killed. I think that we need to start taking care of animals and our environment because if we don't in years time animals will be only just a memory.

Rated a one star as important--but not THAT important.

Judeo-Christian teachings maintain that animals were put on the Earth for the benefit of humans. If you are one of the approximately 70% of people on the planet who are not Jewish or Christian, you may or may not believe differently. However, since we good Americans base our laws on J-C principles, it is no wonder that we have few rights for the animals who aren't lucky enough to belong to our species. If not for religious reasons, why are humans the only animals with rights? We are not the only species with intelligence, and we are far from being the only one with a complex social organization. Just admit that animals have no rights to you personlly because you believe in a supernatural being who magically placed them here for you to exploit--rather anything quantifiable--and you've got something. Otherwise, your reasoning is crap.

umm guys i love animals , i have them all over my room but how stupid would that be to walk around with FAKE fur on your coach purse!!! know one would bye that coach because it is made cheap! i like fur becuz it is fashionable and stylish , rich and fuzzy! , i feel bad but thing about it

i think you should not kill tigers . leopards , lions , all the big cats and the other endangered animals , , you are aspost to eat cow and chicken thats whats it there for , nothing else really,,

One of those issues where the discourse is dominated by extremists. We need laws that recognize basic rights of chimpanzees and apes and laws about torturing chickens, but when we get to banning eating all meat or banning pets, we're taking it too far.

http://www.all-creatures.org/anex/monkey.html Take a look on this website. Animal testing is sick!!! The poor monkeys.

Too many anthropocentric fools don't believe animals have rights, except for the right to hunt or eat them. Have a bit of respect ingrates, we're only a more advanced species of animal, anyway. As for the sadists that commit cruelty to animals, you belong in a different species: parasites.

Some of the comments I'm seeing here completely disgust me. That people can be so ignorant, so selfish, and so misinformed on the subject of animal suffering is apalling. Animals are just as intellegent as we are, and they feel pain just like we do. Have you ever been to a slaughterhouse? No, of course you haven't. I'll tell you about it. Animals on factory farms are treated like machines. Within days of birth, for example, chickens have their beaks seared off with a hot blade. Male cows and pigs are castrated without painkillers. All of these animals spend their brief lives in crowded and ammonia-filled conditions, many of them so cramped that they can't even turn around or spread a wing. Many do not get a breath of fresh air until they are taken to the slaughterhouse, often through weather extremes and always without food or water. The animals are hung upside down and their throats are sliced open, often while they're fully conscious. Today's factory farms use everything they kill, but in the process leave behind an environmental devastation that generations to come will be forced to clean up. Raising animals for food requires more than half the water used in the United States and is the biggest polluter of our water and topsoil. Coyotes and other animals are poisoned and shot by western cattle ranchers who consider federal land to be their land for grazing. And what on the subject of our OWN health? Humans are natural herbavores and were not made to eat meat. We no longer need meat for survival, but we eat it anyway--and it's damaging our health. Meat in fast food restruants and other places is one of the leading causes of obesity in our nation. Our country's meat addiction is slowly not only poisoning and depleting our land, water, and air and causing our animals uneeded suffering, it is also killing us.

Animals rights IS human rights. I know that sounded like improper grammar but hear me out. If animals are treated nicely, then the Earth will be better off (no depleting of resources, etc. It's called the eco system, look it up.) If the Earth is better off, then humans are. Not to mention that eating meat & dairy is bad for human's health (yeah it is, look that up too.) And oh yeah, isn't one of the signs of a psychopath animal abuse when they were kids? One day you're tossing a puppy around, the next, a woman. I don't see how anyone could differentiate between a baby monkey and a baby kitten, and a baby human, and a baby pig. They are all sentient beings, with approximately the same level of intelligence (sentient IS a word; look it up). In the words of Ron Reagan - It's just that I have this funny objection to torturing small animals no matter how scrumptious their body parts might be . Our food industries are equal opportunity abusers: cows, chickens, pigs, and a special mention to those little calves who for their short, miserable lives are locked into crates too small to allow movement just so we can eat veal. And don't even get me started on animal testing, animals used for clothing, animals used for labor, ETCETERA. It's a damn shame how much humans USE animals. It's 2005, when are we gonna learn how to do stuff for ourselves?

Thats a pretty disgusting, specesist thing to say fierce ,specesism is second on my list only to racism. It doesnt matter that I'm more intelligent than say, my friend, or less, we should still respect eachother. Animals have the right to be happy and live a life without pain but thats it. Remember, your eating a once living thing that was killed for you to eat, so if anything, you should be thankful to that chicken or cow for giving you the protein you need

all of you are spoken like truly blind followers of Descartes, a blind frog if ever there was one. enjoy Hell.

The only right than an animal has is to be eaten by a far more intelligent, evolved being (that would be me) and defecated into feral, fetid waste.

First, we should clear up the concept of animal rights. This is actually a misnomer as animals have no rights, but humans may or may not have the right to treat animals a certain way. This is similar to zoning laws for real estate. Your property doesn't have a right not to have a factory built upon it; one just doesn't have the right to build a factory on that piece of land. With that said, it appears that the issue of animal rights boils down to health and morality. The former is easy to discount, as this is a matter of choice and the risks one wishes to assume. Humans are natural omnivores, so there is nothing necessarily morally wrong with taking life for living and survival. This would also apply to testing for health reasons. Nevertheless, how humanely we treat animals raised for food and testing is basically determined by how much we are willing to spend. More humane treatment means higher costs for food and goods requiring testing. Where the line should be drawn is something that the political process answers for us. What isn't a matter of dispute is that we are trustees of the planet. The interest in protecting nature and wildlife should be given great weight even if that interest does not trump all other considerations (notwithstanding extremists who would prefer an all or nothing position). Technology has provided alternatives for things that once were only provided by nature (eg furs) so animals need not be sacrificed for these purposes; however, with the elimination of many natural predators, legal and controlled recreational hunting is actually required for the health and well being of many ecosystems. Finally, the animal rights issue is interesting in that it offers an example of how freedom of choice is not determinative on any issue. If we can limit one's choice on a debatable issue such as animal rights, then that means that choice is not the end all on any other issue (eg abortion and gun rights). Rarely does an issue boil down to the simplicity of a single factor. The bottom line is that animal rights is of interest, but the issue pales in comparison with some larger issues.

God gave us the beast for our own uses. Ive always thought that the American Indians has a real vision for how we treat our animal world. We are there brothers and we should only kill to feed or cloth ourselves. We as humans ofcourse have perverted the meaning of 'need' and go beyond it. I have pure hatred for any human being who harms and animal for pure sport. I am an avid hunter but I would never make a kill and not harvest its meat. I would never harm a domestic animal for any reason. Dont let me catch you do it either. I would report you to the police directly or worse. Absolutly there should be laws to prevent this kind of abuse to animals.

For health reasons alone (forget rights for a minute, if you can): Not only are meat, dairy products, and eggs inherently damaging to the human body on a regular basis, but in today's polluted environent, these products are laced with hazardous chemicals. Toxic chemical resdiues bioaccumulate in the food chain and are most likely to be found in foods highest in the food chain (people - check out escalating cancer rates as the *result* of this, then meat, fish, dairy and eggs) Hazardous substances including DDT, Haptachlor, PBBs, PCBs, Dieldrin, Dioxin have been found regularly in americas food supply (when tested) IN addition to environmental pollutants, meat, dairy and eggs also contain hazardous drug residues (between 30 and 50% of the antibiotics produced in the US are fed directly to farm animals) - and subsidized by our tax dollars via agribusiness subsidies, resulting in the VERY profitable pharmaceutical industry, also now subsidized by our tax dollars. Bacterial contaminants such as salmonella and E. coli are transmitted to humans through animal products, causing nausea, vomiting, fever, diarrhea, and death in cases (not to mention the fact that approx 60% of the nation is lactose intolerant and blame their 'allergies' on other things. Bacterial contamination is compounded because many bacteria have grown resistant to antibiotics and finally, Pigs, chickens and turkeys are now genetically modified to grow so many times faster than they did before that when fully grown, turkeys and chickens can not stand upright due to their oversized breasts (with no testing of whether this genetically modified food was safe for us) and pigs if left to continue to grow, can barely move around on their legs. For health reasons alone, eating animals is no longer safe....add to that mad cow disease, scabies, and the fact they are feeding cow blood to dairy calves (hey, they say protein is protein, and the calves mothers can't nurse, they are plugged in 24/7 to a milking machine. They also grind up dead chickens and sheep to feed to chickens and to cows. Talk about being high up on the food chain! It is also estimated that half of all alzheimers deaths are really due to mad cow disease because, my friends, those people that were autophsied did, in fact, have mad cows disease, not alzheimers. This is a huge health issue. Folks studying cancer in people have so much to choose from its hard to know where to begin!!

WHAT animal rights?

We need to be concerned with the humane treatment of animals. Animal rights pushes things toward PETA, which morally compares the Holocaust with barbequeing chickens.

we need animal rights, I dont want to wonder if every time I eat a steak if it sufferd, or if the milk I drink is full of pus, cause the cows are stressed. An they feel just like we do, Hot or cold, hungry, Ya. they need rights, because we dont treat them always as they should be treated. and there the weaker one on the earth , it is out job to protect them, Then we are also taken care of ourselves, we all are one together,

I don't think people should be allowed to put their small pets in the microwave or endangered species should be killed for their teeth or fur. Animals are important to the eco-system as well as the balance of the food chain and the economy. When a man shoots a deer or a hooks a fish, not for food, but for a trophy, Then that man is not worth doing anything for.

Animals have the right to be shot, killed, skinned, and eaten.

I think it is very, very important to stop the widespread animal abuse in the world. There should be harsh penalties for every person who commits this crime. Someone needs to defend the animals that are abused, as most of them can't defend themselves with the weapons we have nowadays.....

Animals themselves do not have any rights. However I am against cruelty to animals. I support a person's right to hunt or fish though.

Animals taste good. I dont beleive in sadistic torture of animals, but I dont think that we should make laws about it.

Stupid. Why is there a law against cock fighting? What future does a chicken have anyway? How does a successful chicken end up? In a 10 piece meal.

Ok Solenoid, humans are not humane to animals. Have you been to a slaughterhouse? Well let me tell you about one since I have. These places are 1000 times worse than any concentration camp. Animals have no space, are injected by steroids constantly. Imagine living for one reason-to die, and not even in a human way. Cows heads are put into a groove, and then their stomachs are slashed while they watch all their intestines flow out as they are still alive, I challenge anyone to find any right in this situation. When animals kill in the wild, they are free. Its not like the shameful conditions of the meat packing industry which is definately NOT humane.

No, this is not a very important issue in the long run. Human Rights, for example, are far more important. Yes, animals have rights, and we must respect them, but it doesn't take of lot of effort to do so. Just don't harm them unnecessarily or, if you must kill them (for food or for hunting) then do it in a way that minimizes their suffering. Mission accomplished. I really hope the government doesn't adopt animal rights as a cornerstone of policy, though, since as I said there are a zillion more important issues right now to focus on.

We all know it's more depressing when a dog dies than a human.

I like animals, but this is ridiculous! Humans are animals too? There is no god but mother earth? We should abandon clothing and have one massive world wide orgy? Abandon civilization? These people are sick!!!!

Animal Rights right now seems very ridiculous, especially when American diet is Burger King, McDonalds, and KFC. Why even give rights to species that kill each other and are at constant war with one another. I can see this is a political issue, but animal rights will never ever get much support at all, and will never become into law.

If God didn't intend for us to eat animals, he wouldn't have made them out of meat.

This is a really important issue. Animals should be treated much better than they are now. We have no right to abuse animals. And by the way, Rodoedo, humans are able to survive perfectly well withour meat, in fact vegetarians are much less likely to suffer from heart disease, cancer or strokes than meat-eaters. I have been a vegetarian for 6 years (since I was nine) and a vegan for 1 year, and I never get ill. Also it is very bad for you spiritually to eat meat, people have known this for thousands of years.

Spare me. . .

Not a big POLITICAL issue, but a moral issue. I, as a human, am omnivorous; I like eating meat just as much as I like eating vegetables, and I am thankful for the life which ended to preserve mine (plants are living, too, by the way). It can't be avoided, so the least you can do is be thankful for it. We certainly should NOT be wasteful (i.e. hunting for a trophy and not eating the animal, that's pretty screwed up), we should certainly NOT torture aniamls or treat them inhumanely even if we're going to end up eating them, but eating is a part of life. Now, for cosmetic research/medical research, that's a tough line to draw. I don't think we have to stick eyeliner in a rabbit's eye to see if it irritates it--I think the answer is pretty obvious. Stuffing an indecent amount of ANY chemical into a rat is probably going to cause cancer--A creature can die of drinking too much water, ANYTHING in excess'll kill you. But, for medicines, I can understand that testing is helpful to ensure the safety of humans, though I wish it didn't have to come at the expense of another life, I can see where they're coming from. As for fur coats, for crying out loud, if you're not willing to eat mink, you shouldn't have a mink coat! Carcasses of these animals are often just thrown out after they're skinned for whatever flashy coat, is all that really necessary? I mean, at least for leather, we eat the cow; I don't hear about a lot of people chowing on mink steaks! Here's a little story: My fiance' had a mandatory Animal Physiology class a few years back. They had to use frogs and rats for various experiments. For one, they killed the frog to take a one inch square piece of its skin to test how it retains water. That experiment failed, just like all the experiemnts did. Then, for another, they had to anesthetize a rat to put chemicals in it to see how its heart would react. The anesthesia didn't work for most rats, one rat screamed when it was cut into, another feebly pushed the scalpel away as best it could to avoid being attacked. These rats were supposed to die at the end of the experiment, but many were still alive and could have lived if they were just stitched back up and left to recouperate. But, regulations state that animals experimented on have to die, so the teacher broke their necks. All of this, and they had computer programs IN THE SAME ROOM which taught frog anatomy and even included virtual experiemnts which were similar to the ones that were mandatory in class. Maybe "hands on experience" is a better teacher, but every single student I've known in that class said that they would have gladly done without that experience.

Animal rights is an important political issue. We do require meat to survive and this meat comes solely from lesser animals. Hunting for sport or fun is cruel and useless, and should be banned as far as I am concerned. If we didn't have any regulation on animal cruelty, then it would run rampant in this country. There is too much of it going on as is. They need protection too.

I don't know...I guess it gets three stars because I think some of things that are done to animals are obsolutely terrible and should not be done even if it means some whore can't go strutting around in fur. I also believe in protecting wildlife and endangered species. But I won't feel bad for eating a cheese burger or enjoying sushi.

Living in Cookeville, Tn, I can attest to the need for animal rights. Having watched the cops pull over an innocent family, and blow their dog away makes me sick. When you treat animals bad, I feel there is a tendency to start treating people the same way. It de-humanizes (or de-dogizes) cruelty, and shows a lack of respect for God's creatures.

Animals do not have "RIGHTS" . with all the trouble human beings are having right now all over the world theres more important things to think about than hysterical ideas about the so-called rights of animals.I believe in animal welfare rather than animal rights.

i am for animal rights. No animal deserves to be tortured or killed for no good reason. No innocent human deserves that treatment either.

This is what happens to Leftist when the Proletariat lets them down. Go out and find a victim who doesn't think, speak or outgrown their juvenile political philosophy and use them as your next assault on common sense. Man what a dumb bunch of silly nonsense, leftist will believe.

The edible ones have a right to be delicious, the friendly useful ones to be valued, the unfriendly, useless but handsome ones stuffed and mounted over my fireplace and the ugly, unfriendly and useless critters extinct. Animals have no inherent rights; humans have a responsibility to treat them humanely both living and dead. Until all human beings are given their inalienable God given rights, it sheer idiocy to guaranteed anything to dumb animal.

For too long, humans have seen themselves as Rulers of the Earth, to do with as we please. We are but one of many forms of life here, and the family of life is interdependent. Respect all living things.

As the earth's only sapient beings, we have a responsibility to minimize the harm we do to other sentient beings, and to employ our intelligence to use animals, when we use them, as humanely as possible--but the idea that we should REFRAIN from using animals, even for such important purposes as food, clothing and medical testing; or that we should despise our own species for doing so, is (all due respect to animal-rights adherents and their good intentions) unsound. Nature is truly "red in tooth and claw"--and we are part of nature, part of the circle of life. While it is hard to justify some of the things we do to animals--the testing of cosmetics, for example--and impossible to justify wanton cruelty, our exploitation of other species is not necessarily more brutal than in other segments of the natural world. Is it worse, say, for a deer to die of a gunshot than of starvation due to overpopulation? Which suffers more? the beef cow that dies from a quick blow to the back of the skull, or the antelope leisurely eaten alive by big cats? Some perspective is in order here.

Animal rights are important, regardless of if you think humans are better or not. I am a vegetarian, but I dont think it is wrong to eat meat. I think humans are carnivores and herbovores by nature and hunting for food is an instinct. However, I do think it is wrong when the animals that are bred for food are treated like crap. When you can't even call KFC Kentucky Frid Chicken because by definition the animals that they use are not chickens, there are serious morality issues. Also, I think dog-fights, cock-fights etc. are disgusting. If people want to watch something fight until it is dead or near-dead, they should volunteer to fight themselves and not use animals for their entertainment. As for using fur, in this day in age there is no need for it. We have the ability to produce synthetic material that looks just like it, so we just don't have the need for real fur anymore. As for people who abuse domestic animals (or any others) criminal punishment should be mandatory. There is no excuse for animal abuse, and, especially with children, these are signs of serious psychological problems. Animals are our friends, treat them like one.

i agree that wild animals should not be killed for fun and for luxury item such as fur coats. i do not agree that we should ban the use of animals in experiments as long as the animals are bred in captivity and not illegally taken from the wild and that meat should not be banned as long as it is from domestic animals. I do not like these young college age extreme animal rights activists who are so opposed to the consumption of meat that they will torch a fast food restaurant but i like peaceful conservatist animal rights activists who peacefully protest the use of wild animal fur in luxury coats.

People think (and say) that since animals aren't people (ie. human beings) they should be wiped from the face of the earth. It doesn't matter if they die, right? I'm sorry, but that whole argument is sick. Sicker than anything. Animals were here long before humans came along and began destroying everything for our own selfish gain. We have to learn to share this planet, not just with ourselves but with the animals and plants as well. Humans really are beginning to have no particular purpose on earth than to destroy it. We have to learn to respect EVERYBODY and animals are a part of that EVERYBODY. We aren't superior to them in anyway except that we have guns. Think about what would happen if dolphins had opposable thumbs. Geesh...we seriously need to get off our high horses and give them a break.

Animal abuse is bad. However, this is animal rights. So, let's get a few facts straight. Hunters are not to blame for animal abuse at all. They're all following the basic cycle of life that any scientist ad textbook will tell you. It's called the hierarchy of species. Hunters are trained to make clean precise kills where as animals raised to be a part of the assembly line are met with a cruel and torcherous death. At least an aminal that dies by the hunt has had a life to live. Animals on the assembly line, however, live their whole lives in closed spaces having no freedom whatsoever. A way to describe it is like putting humans in concentration camps for their entire lives. Another known fact is that the meat from the wild is much healthier than all the differnt unnatural chemicals that our gov't. pumps into every chicken, cow, or pig, and poison our bodies to a unhealthy life and a slow death. That's the REAL TRUTH!

I think animal rights are extremely important. The amount of animals that are on the brink of extinction is very disturbing. I do not agree with animal testing whatsoever as I do not see what it ultimately achieves considering the products will be for human use, not animal use. In regards to humans eating meat, humans have been eating meat for thousands of years now, and we're not the only species that eat meat! I don't like the thought of animals being killed for testing of products, or so some stupid people can wear fur coats, or for fun. We all have to live on this planet and its time everyone started respecting this planet, so its not only animals, its the whole environment, thats also how we endanger animals by destroying their habitats by either pulling them down or polluting t