Animal Rights and Me

Lauren Justus

English 10

2017

Dear Reader,

For the last four years this has been something that has been very important to me. Because of how I was introduced to this topic, I feel that it’s impacted me more heavily than it usually would for most other people. When I was introduced to this topic I feel like it hit me/changed me in ways that it wouldn’t have if it were shown to me in any other way. This is a subject that means a great deal to me and affects the choices that I make every day and how I view the world. When I was around the age of twelve I was exposed to the world of animal cruelty. This moment in my life shaped me into a totally different human to what I would’ve been without the knowledge of this topic in the world. The night that showed me how terrible the world of animal cruelty is, in particular the meat industry. After the day I was enlightened on this topic, it lead to a continuous cycle of me trying not to eat meat for about four years. Finally making the decision to not only cut out eating meat but also cutting out using products that test on animals has turned into one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, and would highly encourage moving into that lifestyle if you’re looking for a change to make in your life. Not until recently, I decided that not eating meat and not using products that test on would make me feel way better about how I’m impacting the world.

The concert

I’m sitting in a big crowded room. There are lots of people standing and looking down at the medium sized stage about 100 feet away. The huge screen behind the artist, that my parents constantly forced me to listen to growing up whether I liked it or not, goes black. The room, once filled with music and voices, fell silent. There are muffled voices of people talking every now and then, but otherwise the room Is absolutely silent. All of the sudden the screen starts light up and the music starts to play again. The screen lights up again, but this time it’s a video. The video was of something that I don't think my 12 year old brain could've imagined. This time the video is playing footage of animals. The video isn't just of animals. The video is of animals being tortured in farms. The animals are being thrown and killed, as if it was happening right in front of me. The people in the crowd aren’t nearly as freaked out as I am. The music keeps playing and I am left absolutely horrified. The video keeps getting worse and worse and I ended up leaving mid way through. My mom followed after me in an effort of trying to tell me that everything is alright. I sit outside of the venue thinking about what I had just seen minutes prior. I couldn’t comprehend what was going on. Little did I know, this would mess me up so badly, and influence me so heavily in life. This event led to a long string of events of me trying to become vegetarian on and off for about three years. Many other moments have changed my vision about the world today, but this one is one that will always stuck with me no matter what I do.

Change

There are so many things in the world that we could fix,

There are so many things that we could change that aren’t that hard to do.

There are so many things that you can choose to change in your life.

There are so many things that would make you change the way you view things.

Some of these things are an option.

Some of these things can be done by just changing the way you eat.

Some of these things can be done by deciding not to support certain industries.

Some of these things aren’t going to be easy.

These things are so impactful on so many industries, people, animals, and the world itself.

These things impact the world no matter if we realize it or not.

These things help fuel global warming and so many issues that the world is facing today.

No matter what we think, what we do can change how everything works.

Warped Tour and Peta

This is a short dialogue piece from when I went to warped tour and talked to the vegan organization called peta. The group is there every year and usually tries to get you to go vegan but it's usually just a guilt trip by telling you about everything that you’re doing wrong in life.

Me and my friends are walking through the fair grounds looking at tents and watching some smaller bands play before the bands we wanted to were playing when someone from peta came up to us and started talking to us about what we could do to support them.

Short dialogue:

Peta worker: “Hey! Would you be interested in maybe signing up for our text notifications on how you can transition into eating a hundred percent vegan diet that could transform your life completely? If you sign up we’ll give you a free bracelet, there's also more things you can pick up at our tent.”

My two other friends look at me and kind of shrug

Peta worker: “it's to get the company that makes UGGS to stop using sheepskin and fur in their boots.”

Me: “um… I guess?”

I look back over at my friends and make a face of “should I actually do this?”

The peta person smiles and hands me a small paper with a bunch of information on what they were trying to stop.

Peta worker: “If you could just text this to this number you’ll get daily texts from us telling you all about what you can do to help become an animal activist.”

Me: “okay… cool, thanks I guess”

The peta worker hands me the bracelet and my friends also sign up once I'm done talking to the peta worker.

For the next couple of months (because I was too lazy to unsubscribe from their messages) I got texts every day during my math period of bunnies with eye infections from testing and links to more photos on their website of animals being tortured. In most situations I would totally say to go for learning about veganism and animal testing but in this case, and more importantly, not knowing what I was actually signing up for, it was kind of jarring to see photos of that when I wasn’t prepared for it.

How we Treat Animals

The way that animals are treated is a huge topic that I and tons of other people are very passionate about. Whether you’re talking about the topic of animals being abused or slaughtered, is in each way a really big issue in our world. Because of how many animals are tortured each year many are taken away from their families and put into shelters to be kept safe from the other terrible things they experienced prior to being put into the shelter.

When I was around the age of twelve or thirteen, my aunt came out and stayed out here in Salt Lake with my family for a while and then got a job up at best friends up in the canyon and soon moved up there. I went up there every other weekend and got to play with lots of animals that were taken away from their homes because of how they were abused and or neglected. This is something that has made me want to start treating animals with so much more love because some animals are actually abused and neglected by their owners. Going up to see my aunt and playing with the animals up there at best friends totally changed my perspective on the way that animals are treated.

Sometimes I wonder why someone would ever want to physically harm or torture an animal. I also tend to wonder a lot about why someone would ever think that eating a cow is different from eating a cat or a dog/ any other pet, most of the animals that are eaten are usually as smart and loving as most other pets that people have. To me, eating any “regular farm animal” is no different than eating any regular pet that would be in your neighbor's house or even your own. Overall being kind to animals and respect animals the same way we do our own pets.

Overall no animal should have to be put through pain for our own use. Because of how many animals we kill each year so many innocent lives are wasted for something the we could live without, eating animal products and using animals to test our own man made products on.

Choices

One thing that has made me think about eating meat and the effects that it has, is how the babies of those animals must feel. To have a family ripped out of your life for another being's existence. Knowing that your parent or loved one is being used to feed someone else. I cannot imagine how unbearable that would be. So knowing that animals get taken away from their homes really makes me extremely upset. This is one thing throughout my journey as non meat eater that’s kept me in my place and made me not want to go back to what I was eating before.

Knowing exactly what goes on with the food we eat. Can totally change your perspective on how our world.

When looking into this topic there are so many things that you’ll find that will make you so shocked and surprised to see, but what's even worse is that it is what's actually going on. Whether you choose to see the world through a rose tinted glass, or not, you can’t deny what's actually going on and what’s happening in the world and what we consume.

If you choose to buy into an industry that acts and does things that you don’t agree with, stop supporting them. As people we have the option to buy into what we want to and have that kind of control in our lives to make decisions like that. The beauty of humanity is that we have the will to chose what we do and what we support. If we don't like something we can do things to change those things no matter how large those issues may be.

End.

Dear Reader-

This part of my multi genre project talks about why I chose this topic and the significance that animal rights and animal cruelty has played in my life.

The Concert-

This is an experience that I had that introduced me into the world of animal rights and exactly what was going on in the meat industry. The photo I used is of Morrissey and a baby cow. Morrissey is the artist I went and saw that had the video that exposed me to the world of animal rights.

Change-

Change is about how we have the choice to do what we want as people. As people we have the right to choose what we do and we need to acknowledge the consequences.

Warped Tour and Peta-

This is about something I experienced first hand at a music tour about a year and a half ago. Learning more about what I was supporting changed the way I viewed the meat industry and even their haters. The photo that I used for this is one of the many photos that I would've seen if I would’ve clicked and looked through their website.

How we Treat Animals-

This is about my experiences with being around people who care for animals and how we treat the animals we have.

Choices-

I ended the project with choices to show people that we have control over what we d and who we choose to support. In our lives we can choose to see the truth if we look, even if you choose not to believe it, it's out there.

Photo credits-

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=rgLzZli%2f&id=47B4ACD45A9CBEC7B8295210B1461539B2C67C1E&thid=OIP.rgLzZli_dnnGdUc0UGqDwwEsDU&q=animal+rigts&simid=608027870374527437&selectedIndex=12&ajaxhist=0

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=By8yf9me&id=5FD7C4FC8273D6067B4DE36DBECC773E652D788B&thid=OIP.By8yf9meWKT--T-SqMitrwFZC0&q=morrissey+animal+rights&simid=607995890069539952&selectedIndex=8&ajaxhist=0

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=VX3EXuid&id=ADD1F305DF7D7658887C7C615640924E031F53AC&thid=OIP.VX3EXuidJNZpDgMfy_RFEgEsCo&q=animals+in+crates&simid=608030370055196232&selectedIndex=13&ajaxhist=0