Do Animal Rights Matter?

A Hundredth Monkey will see what is going on around him and speak out for peace.

It is often said that a society is ultimately judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members. If we were to extend that maxim to include the animals that rely on us for their care, we'd face a harsh judgment.

I took this clip from the Change.org Newsletter:

This week an undercover video was released showing employees at Conklin Dairy, a dairy farm in Ohio, beating cows with crowbars, stabbing them with pitchforks, and violently punching, throwing and kicking young calves. Then the workers bragged about torturing the helpless animals.

After watching the video, Dr. Bernard Rollin, professor of animal science at Colorado State University, said "This is probably the most gratuitous, sustained, sadistic animal abuse I have ever seen."

The agriculture industry wants you to believe this is an isolated incident. But it's not.

On factory farms, animals regularly live out their short lives in confinement so extreme that they can't stand up, turn around, stretch their limbs, or lie down comfortably. It's an industry where abuse has become normal.

Sometimes it takes an extreme example of abuse for a critical mass of society to acknowledge a chronic problem that is otherwise easy to ignore. For the welfare of animals raised in factory farms, we hope that time is now.

You don't have to be an animal advocate, much less a vegetarian, to want to reform the way we raise our farm animals. 

All it takes is a modicum of compassion and the acknowledgment that animals should not endure unnecessary trauma or abuse while in our care.

If you would also like more information about how to get involved in the movement for broad-based reform of our animal welfare laws, we welcome you to visit the Animals community on Change.org.

   Namaste