Part 1 - What is Animal Rights?

1421: 

Edited by CJ Tointon

Animal Rights is about animals having the right to a life!  It's not much to ask;  but humans have stolen this right from them - from certain animals that is.  For many, many centuries we humans have been doing whatever we want to animals and no one's objected.  Most people have learnt nothing over the years regarding animal slavery, animal incarceration or animals bred in captivity.  Some of us, however, have learnt a valuable lesson about the significance of denying sentient beings their liberty and we've decided to disassociate from that practice entirely!  
Over the centuries, humans have practised animal enslavement on a grand scale.  It's been so routine for so long that it now seems normal.  Most people on the planet wouldn't think twice about it.  Animals are simply there to be used. But there's a vicious circle here.  The animals are reared in unhealthy conditions, are killed as unhealthy animals and pass their 'un-health' onto the humans who eat them.  Farmed animals are kept alive by being fed all manner of artificial supplements, their muscle tissue is flooded with adrenalin when in terror at the point of execution and this in turn is passed on to the human body when the animal material is ingested. The integrity of an otherwise healthy functioning metabolism and immune system is compromised, making the animal-eater vulnerable to many serious illnesses.  Using animals for food creates a two-tiered problem.  The first is the ethical problem of denying them their right to a life and the consumer's conscious or subconscious shame in supporting this.  The second is the physical effect of eating the body parts and secretions of unhealthy animals everyday of one's life.  And, like the emperor's new clothes, almost no one dares say a word against the practice because almost everyone is involved.
Vegans consider the practice of  'animals for food' unacceptable, not normal, unwise and fundamentally wrong.  Apart from being nutritionally and ethically dangerous, it presents a barrier to the further evolutionary progress of our species.  Homo sapiens have developed superiority over other life forms.  We are the dominant species.  We have already achieved the survival of the fittest.  But what does "the fittest" really mean in this context?  We might continue to survive by way of dominating other species or any potential predator, but there is no quality to our survival.  Our own evolution is held back, both by our abuse of an enslaved species and our dependency on it, which we're now unable to control.
With our reliance on animal products, our ability to stay healthy is weakened.  But we've also compromised the ability of these animals to survive if they were ever liberated.  Over centuries, humans have mutated and manipulated the animals they've farmed to such an extent, that they would no longer be able to survive in the wild – they’d be easily picked off by any number of predators.  If freed, they would die as helplessly as a babe thrown into a river.  But, unfortunately, the farm gates are unlikely to be opened any time soon.  Animal farms and abattoirs would be the last institutions omnivores would willingly shut down.  Enslaved animals are hardly likely be released from captivity as long as humans perceive them to be their most important food source.

If  humans woke up one morning with a sudden burst of intelligence and courage, or if there were a change of heart amongst us, then the solution would be a clear (if radical) one.  We'd stop breeding animals.  We'd leave them alone and find all our food from plants.  Unless we stop using animals for food and clothing, our species will never be able to move on.