Information Related to "Did God Give Animals Rights?"
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If our society were full of common sense, the question of whether animals have rights like people do would never come up—because people would know. Animals are animals and human beings are human beings. That is, if our society had common sense.
The animal rights movement
The modern animal rights movement charts its origin from a book titled Animal Liberation printed in 1975. It was written by Australian-born Peter Singer, now a professor of philosophy in America at Princeton University. His book proclaimed that animals, in essence, are morally equal to people. Animal rights and other elements of Dr. Singer's philosophy of ethics were recently presented as the topic of an international conference during April of 2007 at the University of Sydney in Australia.
As a young person, you have almost certainly come in contact with the animal rights movement—most likely at school or university. Animal rights activists have heavily targeted the education system to carry their message, which sounds good because, being human, we tend to love animals—especially cute, furry or feathery ones.
Many initially lump animal rights with animal welfare programs (like animal shelters, etc.)—but these are not the same, as animal rights activists Tom Regan and Gary Francione clarify. "Not only are the philosophies of animal rights and animal welfare separated by irreconcilable differences . . . the enactment of animal welfare measures actually impedes the achievement of animal rights" ("A Movement's Means Create Its Ends," The Animals' Agenda, January/February 1992, pp. 40-42)
The philosophy that spawns the concept of animal rights doesn't come from God. The founder of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), Ingrid Newkirk, made the now-famous core statement in Vogue magazine in 1989: "A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy."
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