The Stop to Animal Cruelty
While you sit down at the dinner table admiring the delicious steak that you are about to enjoy, have you ever once thought about the fact that your dinner came from a cow that was raised for the purpose of slaughter? Or how the chicken on your plate was tortured from a factory farm? Can you even begin to imagine what animals undergo in the name of scientific research? What about many of the animals that are turned in to shelters that come from abusive homes and who have severe injuries? Have you imagined what it would be like to have the life of an animal? Animal cruelty is defined as the cruel, unwarranted, unethical treatment of animals. A few years ago, I attended a convention held by PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. That convention opened up my eyes to the suffering that animals endure on a daily basis just to make human life “better” and “easier”. From factory farms, to vivisection, to the abuse that house pets suffer, animal cruelty makes hell visible to animals on earth. I was exposed to the reality of animal suffering, such as beating dogs with baseball bats, people declawing cats, and cutting off the beaks of chickens.1 I had to look away from the terror that was documented. After attending the convention I was inspired to educate myself and become aware of animal cruelty, and to make choices in order to prevent animal suffering and to help fight it.
Animal cruelty can be defined in many different ways. Some people think killing for food is animal cruelty, while others disagree. Animal cruelty can be seen as skinning animals for fur, using them as entertainment, or performing scientific research on them in order to better our healthcare. There is no humane way to kill, but there are unnecessary things humans do that make the pain more enduring. Cows and pigs should not have their heads smashed in before they die, and animals should not be picked around solely for humor or entertainment people desire. As Lewis Carroll stated, “It is a humiliating but an undeniable truth, that man has something of the wild beast in him, that a thirst for blood can be aroused in him by witnessing a scene of carnage, and that the infliction of torture, when the first instincts of horror have been deadened by familiarity, may become, first, a matter of indifference, then a subject of morbid interest, then a positive pleasure, then a ghastly and ferocious delight” 2. This is where my goals come in. Being a UT student, I have many resources and many opportunities to change this world. In my long-term goals I plan to form an organization focused on animal cruelty and the means of preventing it. My perfect world would consist of no killing of animals and no meaningless torture of animals. Although these goals seem unreasonable now, in the next four years of my college experience I plan on taking steps to make this happen. To begin, I have manageable goals such as becoming a vegetarian (once again) in order to lead the no animal cruelty life in general. I want to help animal shelters and familiarize myself with animal cruelty suffered by animals that have been abandoned or abused. After accomplishing these goals and being an example of what I want to lead and what I believe in, I will start my organization in the next year. As a freshman at UT, I have experienced the stress and overwhelming change of college life. I believe I am not yet ready to take on “the world” as of right now because I am still inexperience and incapable to lead.
When I chose this class during summer orientation I was amazed by the description. I have always cared for animals and have always wanted to connect leadership and ethical decisions with animals. Professor Bump’s class seemed to be the perfect fit for both my schedule and also my interests. In his class I have learned that I need to manage my time in order to succeed. I have begun to conqueror my routine of procrastination and I am currently on a better path to developing mature writing skills. With reading and writing comes great power. I believe with his class and my other classes, the reading and writing will teach me ways to illustrate my views in a meaningful fashion. With animals suffering more and more each day, I am motivated to be successful in my classes in order to take on bigger challenges such as preventing animal cruelty. When I have begun a routine as being a student, and an individual determined to change the world, during my sophomore year I plan to start my organization to eliminate animal cruelty. I will use my skills as a writer and a leader to provoke students on campus to become aware of our behavioral choices that affect animals. Ethical decisions about animals include choices about what we eat, what we wear, and what we choose to participate in. During my junior year, I will use my organization to gain popularity and awareness outside of campus and spread it among the community in order to engage more people in different community projects and spread awareness of animal cruelty. As I conclude in my last year of college, I hope my organization branches out to ignite other students to become aware of our purpose and hope they continue to extend our message further until animal cruelty no longer exists on the UT campus and in the Austin community. By starting the organization, I will not only have become a leader, but I will have created great expectations to strive for in my career as I leave UT. I plan on joining an animal rights organization in order to continue my fight for zero animal cruelty in this world and become an example of leadership in whatever career I embark on.
Witnessing the suffering of animals has made me realized that humans think we are the “top dogs” of this world, but what will happen when our supremacist attitude backfires on us? Are we heartless and selfish enough to torture earthlings that have every right to live on this planet as we do? As Mother Teresa said, “ they too, are created by the same loving hand of God which created us... it is our duty to protect them and to promote their well-being” 3. It is my duty to expose the truth and find a “cure” for it. As I walk by everyday and pass the amazing tower that reminds me of my vision, “ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”, I plan on carrying it out in my career, and my model of life in order to succeed financially and morally.
[1] People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), “media”, 2010
http://www.peta.org/mediacenter/default.aspx
[2] Lewis Carroll, “Vivisection” in Leadership, Ethics, and Animals, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s Copies & Binding), 380
[3] Mother Teresa, “Earthlings screenplay” in Leadership, Ethics, and Animals, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s Copies & Binding),
http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/30210/P1/cruelty.html
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