Mr. Nedelkow
ERWC
19 September 2014
Do Animals Need A Bill of Rights? Animals on a daily basis all over the world are being mistreated and abused by many people that do not care for them. There are very few people attempting to protect these animals, whether they are domestic animals, farm animals, or wildlife animals. More attention should be drawn to the treatment of animals because even if we do have laws for animals and for their well being, many people still do not follow these laws. The laws already established for animals should be enforced, because I do agree that animals need protection, as in free from any harm done towards them purposely, but to have a Bill of Rights specifically made for animals seems extreme. Reasons for believing that animals need protection from any harm done to them from humanity is that many animals are being used for scientific experiments that harm these animals in a cruel way. Yes, there are experiments that use animals and may not harm them in any way, which is fine if there’s no harm being done to them. For example in the article “A Change of Heart about Animals” by Jeremy Rifkin states, “In controlled experiments, scientists at Oxford University reported that two birds named Betty and Abel were given a choice between using two tools, one a straight wire, the other a hooked wire, to snag a piece of meat from inside a tube.” This experiment was fine to conduct because in no way were these crows harmed. The only thing the scientists were doing was observing the crow’s behavior. If there needs to be experiments done to animals for whatever reason, the experiments should be conducted in a way that the animals are not harmed. Another reason for believing that animals need protection is that animals are being harmed or mistreated by people who have a habit of using animals for entertainment. A form of entertainment for humanity from animals in a cruel way is hunting wildlife