Should animals have the same rights as people?

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I think giving them all of the same rights (voting, the right not to be eaten as food, etc) would be problematic, but they should definitely be better protected from cruelty when it comes to experimenting on them (really most experimentation should be banned) and the food industry. What do you think?

It's not possible to give them the same rights, not even the Chimpanzees, because they cannot have a concept of what voting is and they wouldn't want to vote for a human if they did. they would want to vote for another Chimp so it would be meaningless.

However, I believe in the rights of Chimps and other primates to have decent living spaces, a life in which they flourish free from any sort of bondage or cruel experimenting.

Food animals such as cattle are just going to be eaten, it's the only reason humans bred them, that and rodeo entertainment.

Deer have a better quality of life prior to getting eaten but it might not be practical, feeding everyone with wild game.

No animals should be given voting rights or anything like that, but I still value intelligent animals as highly as I value humans. If I had the choice between saving my cat or some random stranger from a burning building, I'd save the cat.

In some sense, animals already have rights. There are laws against torturing and neglecting them, for example.
I don't know why those laws don't seem to apply to animals at "factory farms".
Oh wait, I do know. Capitalism.

I hate factory farms,my state is a victim of Tyson's.Ride behind a truck of turkeys going to be processed and realize that they never had one good day,and the only time they ever saw the outdoors was on their way to be butchered.I do sometimes eat meat,but I want it to have a life before it died.
They have the right to have a decent life.If we are going to eat them,then we should be kind.

unlike humans, animals are not burdened by duty so to afford them rights in the same context would undermine the concept of rights.

Animals should not be afforded rights beyond protection from unnecessary pain or suffering outside what is necessary to satisfy human utility.

anyway the whole thing is rather redundant when you consider that if animals were in the wild, the concept of rights would not apply to them in any shape or form. Circle of life.

I don't think any government have caused animals more pain than the USSR or the People's Republic of China. When was the last time the US government declared an endangered species "an enemy of the people"?

the only reason the american government doesn't engage in animal cruelty is because american animal cruelty is privatised.

China,wow,they have eaten numerous species into extinction.Especially turtles,the sympathetic magic belief that if you eat something that lives long,you will live long.
I saw a video clip of turtles in a room,piled on top of each other,crawling to get out of the heap.I wish I never saw that,it's with me always.No living being should be treated like that.

There are two types of rights, negative and positive.
Negative rights are the right to have torture etc absent from your life.
Positive rights are like voting etc where one is proactive.
I think animals deserve negative rights but positive rights is absurd.

The US has laws against animal cruelty. In fact, no countries punish poaching more severly than the US.

If thats the case, either the bar has been set very low or KFC didn't get the memo.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTN2DgOzF34[/youtube]

What a wonderful fracking life.

I think animals should have certain rights, but not the same rights that people have.

Animals do have some protection from abuse, but it varies wildly by state. There needs to be a federal standard that protects animals from abuse and standard prosecution for animal abusers; mostly people that set animals on fire, torture them for fun, etc. I don't think that animal hoarding (as cruel as it is) should be considered on the same level.

I think it should be completely illegal to hunt cetaceans and elephants. They're too smart. In some ways they're more intelligent than small children. I'm just not okay with killing them, and I consider it very close to murder. Especially considering that there is no humane way to kill a whale.

I also really wish that the standards for humane treatment were upped in the meat, egg, and dairy industry. People complain about it making the cost of meat rise, but there's no reason meat should be cheap enough to make up the majority of your caloric intake for every meal. It's not good for you and it's not good for the environment on top of being flat out inhumane the majority of the time.

When I can sue my sister's chihuahuas for damages, animals can have rights. Until they bear responsibilities and have meaningful participation in a social contract, the notion of intrinsic "rights" for animals is absurd.

Humans do, however, have an ethical obligation to treat animals well, particularly pets, livestock, and those kept for scientific purposes.