Declare the Right to Live

WE THE UNDERSIGNED bring attention to the issue of animal rights from a global perspective.  Every year, millions upon millions of animals unjustly die and are subjected to excruciating pain and cruelty.  This must end.  As such, we put forth the following petition.  

CONSIDERING that humans are a type of animal, with similar origins based on the same evolutionary science discovered over centuries of academic study; 

CONSIDERING that animals live on the same land, breath the same air, and drink the same water as the human population, thereby conferring to them the same claim to Earth as all people; 

CONSIDERING that nature indeed abhors the killing of animals for consumption by people, as can be seen by the drastically increased risk of cancer and other potentially life-threatening diseases in those who consume meats, and; 

CONSIDERING that animals are sentient beings with functioning neural circuitry to confer emotional competence, thereby requiring them to have the ability to feel joy, love, pain, and fear; 

WE HEREBY PROCLAIM that: 

1. All animals have a right to experience life and to be free of involuntary death caused by people when it is not medically warranted.  


2. No animal should be forced to experience unnecessary pain, neither physical nor mental/psychological. 


3. As the predominating intelligent species, humans have a responsibility to other animals to prevent pain via medical techniques excluding death.  


4. The only circumstance that may supercede the above is a situation in which a person's life is at risk, in which case only reasonable force may be used.  

IN WITNESS THEREOF, this declaration is hereby signed and submitted to the United Nations and to all its composing governments.