Question 96: I have read this FAQ and I am not convinced. Humans are humans, animals are animals; is it so difficult to see that?

This FAQ cannot reflect the full variety of paths which have led people
to support the concept of Animal Rights. A more complete compilation would
include, for instance, religious arguments. For example, some Eastern
religions stress the importance of the duties of humans toward animals. A
Christian case for Animal Rights has been presented. Also, legal arguments
have been put forward, by some barristers in the UK, for instance.
Still, some people may remain skeptical about the viability of all of these
other approaches as well. For those people, here is a short quiz:
What is wrong with cannibalism?
What is wrong with slavery?
What is wrong with racial prejudice?
What is wrong with sexual discrimination?
What is wrong with killing children or the mentally ill?
What is wrong with the Nazi experiments on humans?

Animal Rights proponents can reply instantly and consistently. Can you?
Do your answers involve qualities that, if you are objective about it, can
be seen to apply to animals? For example, were the Nazi experiments wrong
because the subjects were human, or because the subjects were harmed???
AECW

It is not difficult to see that humans are humans and animals are animals.
What is difficult to see is how this amounts to anything more than an empty
tautology! If there are relevant differences that justify differences in
treatment, then let's hear them. AR opponents have consistently failed to
support the differences in treatment of humans versus animals with relevant
differences in capacities.
Yes, an animal is an animal, but it can still suffer terribly from our
brutality and lack of compassion.
DG

I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the
way of a whole human being.
Abraham Lincoln (16th U.S. President)

[The day should come when] all of the forms of life...will stand before the
court--the pileated woodpecker as well as the coyote and bear, the lemmings
as well as the trout in the streams.
William O. Douglas (late U.S. Supreme Court
Justice)