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Is it right to force a mouse to live it's life in a laboratory cage
to test anti-cancer drug? How would you like to be squeezed in a cage
with many other animals, not being able to touch the grass, run around
and play, smell the flowers, or go for a walk in the warmth of the
sunshine? Animal cruelty is wrong because we are hurting the Innocent.
Animals experience and feel pain, fear , anxiety, stress, depression,
boredom, joy and happiness. Animals are very intelligent, some ever
learn our own language.
Most people experience their first bond with an
animal. Not only do they bring a companion and a friend into our lives,
but also unconditional love and comfort. Pet shops and puppy mills mass
produce, kennels are overcrowded and dirty, with very little nutrition.
Cats/dogs are held in metal cages and lead miserable lives breeding
continuously. Animals suffer and are neglected, some are sold to
research laboratories.
A large number of animals are raised for
slaughter each year. A cow "has a natural life span of twenty- five to
thirty years, but only survives for an average of five".1 An estimated
"seventeen million raccoons, beavers, bobcats, lynx, coyotes, muskrats,
nutria, and other animals are trapped each year in the United States
for fur".2 They suffer from unbearable pain for several hours before
their lives are ended by the trapper's club. Is the price of life worth
the price of fur?
Psalm 104, 27-30
All creatures depend on you to feed
them throughout the year: you provide the food they eat, with generous
hands you satisfy their hunger. You turn your face away, they suffer.
You stop their breath, they die and revert to dust. You give breath,
fresh life begins, you keep renewing the world.
Disections have been
practiced in biology classes for many years. Critics accuse some
teachers of killing and argue that disection teaches nothing but
cruelty. Nothing is learned by cutting up an animal that cannot be
learned from photographs or drawings. Children do not learn about the
human body by killing and disecting a person, they learn from diagrams
and textbooks.
Vivisection means "cutting alive". It is a worldwide
practice involving millions of animals. Scientists say that
vivisections may not necessarily be painful. Every living being with a
brain, spinal column, and central nervous system feels pain. Animals
were not created for entertainment. What do zoos really teach children?
The animals are stolen from their natural habitats and are brutally
transferred. They suffer from boredom and have natural needs such as
running, climbing, flying, and natural mating.
All of the magic and
glitter of the circus hides the true animal cruelty. Several animals
are confined to small cages, muzzled, and repeatedly whipped in
training. They are declawed, have their teeth removed, and drugged to
be obedient.
Military research on animals include monkeys, baboons,
rats, guinea pigs, sheep, dogs, cats, rabbits, and mice. "... When I
see my closest relative locked in a restraining box, his head filled
with electrodes, and all he has got to reach out to you is with his
eyes, then how can we respond to that if we close ours?".3 Weapons are
tested on innocent animals, nerve gas, bullets, and bombs are all used.
"One sad insight is gleaned from this statement, made by a Porton
workman who lost his bearings: 'I thought I was ill, I thought I was
seeing things. It was a little monkey enclosed In a glass cage. Its
eyes seemed to be falling out and it couldn't breathe. It was in
dreadful, dreadful distress. I forgot everything and went near it and
said something to it, and it buried its head in it's arms and sobbed
like a child. I never slept that night, and the next day managed to go
back to the same room, but it was nearly finished by then. It had sunk
to a little heap at the bottom of the glass cage.'."4
Animal cruelty is
wrong, we are hurting the innocent. Cruelty of animals can be stopped,
not only do we have to open our eyes, but open our mouths as well. Read
a book, write a letter, join a group or start a group, either way, an
animal will be grateful for the chance of a happy life.
End Notes
1. Loraine Kay, Living Without Cruelty, (London: Sidwick & Jackson,
1990), p.15.
2. Laura Fraser, The Animal Rights Handbook, (Los Angeles:
Living Planet Press, 1990), p.9.
3. Kay, Living Without Cruelty, p.
121.
4. Jasper, James M. And Dorothy Nelkin. The Animal
Rights Crusade. New York, The Free Press, 1992.
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