Should animals deserve legal rights? If animals have legal rights, they will be equivalent to humans in law. In the article Animals Deserve Legal Rights, the author claims that animals must have legal rights in order to get away from danger and gives several specious examples. The article does not convince me of the animal’s necessity to have legal rights in two main reasons.
Although the author considers that no living being can live properly unless it is healthy and safe, most of the creatures live in danger and survive. Living creatures living in the forest have to face their inborn enemies. Rabbits have to escape from their predators such as lions and tigers in order to survive. Not only animals but also humans live in a dangerous environment. Mishaps such as car accidents and fire hazards happen in different places in the world every day, but many humans live healthily in this environment. Even those infinitesimal bacteria, which live in a filthy environment, can survive and propagate. These examples show that a safe environment is not prerequisite because there is nowhere absolutely safe. Danger is an indelible component of nature. There is no way to keep a place to be absolutely safe. If the purpose of establishing legal rights for animals is to protect them in a secure environment, the result may be embarrassing because of the internal danger in the animal world. No matter what humans do, animals still live in danger. Thus, legal rights for animals are not essential.