Name: Cesar Arevalo

Stance: M

Debate Worksheet
Should animals have the right to be treated
humanely?
Black: you do work on your own
Red: you do together as a group (you are each
responsible for filling out your own document)
Please make sure your responses are in blue.
Your source linked:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2015-04-
28/animal-rights-animal-wrongs
Your five main points from researched article:

1. There should be regular checking on

slaughterhouses to ensure that animals are not
mistreated and have a swift death.
2. Animals are under the category of legal
things, by that, it means that they can be of
property of someone to do whatever they wish with
them, though it is not encouraged to abuse or
torment the animal, it is still their property.
3. The term animal can be very vague; do fish,
vertebrae, insects, reptiles, invertebrates and
amphibians also count under the name of animal?
Should they also be given these rights? Or just
cattle?
4. There are also many animals out there that can
literally not feel pain or suffer. These are animals
that should not have these rights since they have
no sense of pain to begin with.
5. Animals that have developed self awareness
and sentience should not be treated harshly, they
should have humane deaths if they are sought for
their meat.
Your five main points from ERWC article:

1. Animals that learn new tricks and have a

general sense of intelligence should be treated
humanely, such as Betty the bird.
2. Animals can learn to communicate with humans,
they can adapt and become more like us, such as
Koko, who is a gorilla who manage to learn American
Sign Language.
3. Another example are elephants, who mourn for
their dead for multiple days.
4. Natural selection has led to the evolution of not
only us humans, but animals as well, they have
learned countless amounts of self awareness and
sentience.
5. Just like we teach our children, many other
animals also teach their young. Animals share many
traits alongside us.

Groups five main points overall (from both articles):

1. When animals are being killed they should be

killed in a way that they do not suffer for a long
period of time
2. Meat contains nutrients and high quality protein
(not found in vegetables)
3. Animals have the ability to learn like humans
and they can communicate with them. They also feel
pain and get depressed. They share some
characteristics with humans and deserve (at least)
some of the same rights.
4. Meat doesn't raise your risk of cardiovascular
diseases or diabetes.
5. Vegetarians kill living plants and eat them, so
why can't we eat meat?
Five rebuttal arguments: (what you think opponents
main argument will be)
 1. The harvest of plants or organics foods kills and
harms animals because of traps, poisons, pesticides,
and other license forms of extermination.
2. There are around 850 million people worldwide
that don't have enough calories and they have to eat
meat in order to obtain all the calories needed.
3. Eating meat gives us vitamin B12. Vitamin B12
is not giving by any plant or sunlight. Vitamin B12 is
crucial to a human's brain, nervous system and for
healthy blood cells.
4. Deciding which animals to kill or not to kill
would be implying that the morality concerning
killing or eating or not killing or eating certain
animals would be based on nothing more than whim,
says
5. Imagine if those animals were people, how
would you feel about it now that theyre people
being chained and tortured and even being provided
any semblance of freedom or comfort?
Introduction: (This is your attention getter) This can be
done by sharing a story, a shocking fact or statistic, a
quote with an explanation, etc.

We, in the middle, believe that the eating of animals

should not be barred whatsoever, however, we also
believe that these animals should be treated humanely,
without any suffering or unnecessary violence or malice
or ill will.
Points: (name of point, explanation and evidence to back
up point)

Point 1: Animals should be killed in a way that they do

not suffer for a long period of time.
Explanation: This way they would die a humane and
painless death.
Evidence: Animal abuse in slaughterhouses.
Point 2: Meat contains nutrients and high quality
proteins (not found in vegetables).
Explanation: This is due to meat being mainly made out
of proteins.
Evidence: Meat contains many proteins.

Point 3: Animals have the ability to learn like humans

and they can communicate with them. They also feel pain
and get depressed. They share some characteristics with
humans and deserve (at least) some of the same rights.
Explanation: Animals have a mental capability to learn
and understand simple commands.
Evidence: Koko the gorilla learn how to speak ASL
fluently.

Point 4: Eating meat doesn't raise your risk of

cardiovascular diseases or diabetes.
Explanation: Consumption of meat is not related to
blood-related diseases.
Evidence: Diseases like this are caused by fat, grease,
and lack of exercise, atrophy

Point 5: Animals surely deserve to live their lives free

from suffering and exploitation.
Explanation: Animals should be able to live in liberty,
void of any type of abuse.
Evidence: Their lives should be treated humanely as it is
just simply correct.