For some time now, there has been an increasing discussion in public discourse and social sciences about animal ethics, human-animal relationships, and animal rights. However, the debate is often imprecise, as the term "animal rights" alone does not specify which animals it applies to. It is also not immediately clear from the term what implications arise for the relationship between humans and animals. Does it refer only to certain species of mammals or to all animal species? Are we talking about specific rights or a stronger consideration of interests? To contribute to the specification, this paper aims to systematically compare three prominent animal ethicists - Peter Singer, Tom Regan, and Gary L. Francione. Using the comparison categories of 1) animals and their characteristics, 2) classification of the human-animal relationship, 3) relevance of animal characteristics, and 4) consequences for the human-animal relationship, the paper illustrates the broad spectrum of the animal rights debate and clarifies the concept of animal rights.