Are you for animal rights OR animal welfare and why?

Question

Animal rights is the idea that animals have rights like people and should not be used for our purposes (such as draft, wool, meat, milk, eggs, experimentation, companionship, etc.)

Animal welfare is the idea that animals can be used and owned by humans as long as they are treated well.

OR, if you are not firmly in either category, why not?
AND, if you disagree with my generalized descriptions of each group, why?

P.S. I have a dog so obviously I am in the animal welfare category, but I am not "against" anything, just curious about your beliefs :-).

Answer 1

What a great offering! Let's put PETA & VEGANS aside for the moment. All of us who passionately care about animals, wildlife & the ecology have had to find our moral ground on this one. Here's mine: As natural omnivores I feel that eating meat is fair for humans as long as it is "humane". by that I mean killed for the reason of natural consumption by ourselves & our pets (Let's not go into factory farming here either..too much). And any by-product of this consumption is fair to use. IE..leather, rabbit fur, etc. I will not use or wear any animal product that solely kills for human vanity & not in the scheme of life. For example mink, chinchilla, fox, ermin, seal, reptiles or anything that is killed in an inhumane way (which the fur producers do...like cruel trapping or electrodes up the butt to make sure the fur stands at it's best before they're killed). Any animal product that is not naturally consumed & killed only for fur, skin, etc. I will boycot.
Animals depend on us to take care of them, even the wild ones because of our impact on the environment. We are responsible for their well being. Domesticated beasts work hard for us gladly if in return they get respect & good care. They are not slaves or less than us & we have no right to treat them so. They deserve rights & care & respect. Your catagorizations of this subject are not really correct (somewhat vague given how many levels, good & bad we have to consider) but I admire you so much for putting this question to task. This as important to me as a woman's right to choose. Thank you for putting this subject forth in the way that you have.

Answer 2

I'm also in the animal welfare category...

There are so many domesticated pets, there is no way we could just stop owning them, what would we do? Set them free? They'd never make it on their own, and dogs would form wild packs and cause a whole new set of problems.

I do, however, disagree with experimentation....that is cruelty.

I work in rescue and know the horrible acts that are committed on animals... I am ALL for animal welfare and keeping animals safe, and do everything I can to help animals that need it.

Answer 3

I have a mixed opinion of this. I don't eat meat because of the suffering inflicted on animals in factory farms. But if we did not get labor, dairy, eggs, or wool from them, there would be no need for them since they are not suitable as companion animals and small farms would be obsolete. They would become extinct. As long as an animal is treated humanely, feed and watered properly, and offered companionship from other animals and humans then using them as a resource is fine in my book. Dairy farms should not be allowed to give the cows all those hormones though, because people are unaware of what they are consuming and long term effects are unclear.

As far as pets go, the animals we have today would not survive as wild animals, they are domesticated. They are not as hardy as their ancestors. I don't like exotic animals or caged animals or animal breeding. The only pets people should have should be the result of an effort to house unwanted animals. Many snakes, monkey, and reptiles were taken from their natural habitat, just for someone's amusement. Not cool. If you think you're an animal lover by having one of these, you're wrong. You're doing them no favors.

Animal experimentation is a debate that will go on and on. Many of them are unneccessary and have been repeated thousands of times. Animals die painful deaths and live a poor quality of life.

If you look at it from a religious standpoint, those are all God's creations. Year after year they are locked in cages, abused, neglected, and die with no dignity. It's an abomination.

From a moral/ethical view, it's wrong to benefit from something that gets nothing in return, not even it's basic needs met. That's exploitation and blatant disrgard for well being.

Answer 4

animal welfare, if it were animal rights we would all have to be vegetarians, even the animals. and wouldn't they have to follow laws. i believe god put the earth in peoples care and that includes the animals. so we should care for animals and respect them.