Abdul Moontarin Entry #1

        After reading the article "Animal Rights and Beyond" by David Quammen, made me really think about the situation. I never really paid attention to what I ate or ever thought that animals had rights. After reading the article i was able to get a better understanding of the situation. When I first started reading the article it asked a few questions. The questions were, "Do non-human animals have rights?", "Should we humans feel morally bound to exercise considerations for the lives and well being of individual members of other animal species?", "Is it permissible to torture and kill?" and "Is it possible to kill cleanly without prolong pain?". I feel from my own perspectives and opinions i can answer these questions. I personally believe that yes animals do have rights. They are living creatures and there are many animals out there that can feel and understand pain. The fact that they can understand pain and people still hurt them, is just cruel. Just because we are humans and are superior to the animals does not mean that we shouldn't give animals rights. They were born and live on the same planet at us, therefore they deserve a certain amount of rights. I also feel humans being superior to animals does not give them permission to torture and kill animals. As Singer stated if an animal can feel the pain and suffer from it then they deserve to have rights to protect themselves. The moral thing to do is to not harm living creatures who can endure the same amount of pain as we humans do. So, yes I do believe Animals should get rights and we shouldn't harm every single living animal on our planet just because they are not human.