Animal rights are something I feel we hear a lot, especially in today’s day and age. But, do we actually know what animal rights are, and how to help?

I started a club at my university called Pace Against Animal Cruelty, but animal cruelty isn’t the only issue we fight to end. Along with ending animal cruelty, we fight for animal rights. Animal rights, in a definition, are the ideas that animals are entitled to their own lives, and their most basic considerations- like avoidance of cruelty- should be considered on the same level as human rights.

My club focuses on a lot of categories under animal rights, such as cosmetic animal testing, animal abuse, environmental conservation, and just fighting for equal treatment (or at least better treatment) of animals as a whole.

There are a lot of issues I, and surely many others, with the current way many people treat animals. At its most basic level, animal abuse is a very common problem we often see. Animals are abandoned on the side of the road, beaten, used in fights (dogfighting and cockfighting in particular), left at the shelter, and euthanized when shelters overcrowd. With non-domesticated animals, poaching and hunting are still too common.

These problems disrupt the natural order of things: animals such as the panda, the tiger, and the manatee have almost gone extinct because of excessive hunting and poaching. Millions of dogs and cats are homeless roaming the street, with nowhere to go. Videos go viral of people throwing kittens, beating dogs, etc. I don’t need to go on with the list of problems we see every day.

Cosmetic animal testing is its own burden. Animals are taken against their will and used as test subjects on makeup, hair products, and other things that may be potentially harmful, and potentially fatal. There are pictures all over the internet of animals with burn marks, scars, and scratches from harmful chemicals in the products being used.

Hair products and rabbits don’t go together, so there shouldn’t be any reason to use them to test it. Cosmetic testing isn’t the only thing animals are used for: animals can be used in medical tests, classroom dissections, drug, and food product testing. They suffer alone, in a cage, longing to be free. If humans in a cage is such a repulsive thought, what difference is an animal in a cage being experimented on?

Now, what can you do to help? Because sometimes issues seem extremely big for one person to tackle. Lucky for you, you are never alone in the fight for animal rights. There are tons and tons of organizations that try to raise awareness of animal cruelty and animal rights, such as PETA, ASPCA, The Humane Society of the United States, and Cruelty-Free International. Just donating to these organizations is a step to ending animal cruelty. Also, starting a club or simply raising awareness about the issue is a great idea! It does seem like a lot, but like any issue, it’s never too late to get involved.