ANIMAL RIGHTS ASSESSED

The recent fires in the Helderberg elicited no uproar about the small animals burnt alive, as there would have been if domestic animals had been involved. To some extent this then illustrates the difference between the Animal Rights (A/R) and Animal Welfare movements.

Whilst the latter does not accord equal status to the various species of animals, the A/R movement sees all animals as individuals of equal and intrinsic value. Accordingly, whereas the abuse of cats, dogs and horses might attract wide public condemnation, the lot of the dassie for example, or the farm animal does not elicit the same level of concern.

The A/R movement abhors what it considers the moral schizophrenia of loving our pets while turning a blind eye to others being led to cruel slaughter.

In his 1996 book Rain Without Thunder, Professor Francione, Professor of Law at Rutgers University, traces the emergence of the Rights movement as a direct reaction to the conservative philosophy of Animal Welfare. He postulates that, in order to stop animal exploitation, the AR movement has to take a more radical stand that recognises that animals are not property and that they have fundamental and inalienable rights. The welfare movement, which morally accepts that animals may be exploited as long as they are treated 'humanely', is therefore not able to accomplish the real goal, which is the elimination of the property status of animals.

The A/R movement, which has a long philosophical history, has been described as the last of the great freedom movements. Like racism and sexism, it has its fundamental origins in a patriarchal society where blacks, women and animals were seen as inferior. Thus, when philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, forerunner of later feminists, published her Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792, her ideas were ridiculed and elicited the response: "Women's rights? They will be telling us animals have rights next!"

The churches also long played a part in the general acceptance of women, animals and blacks as inferior beings with the status of ‘property.’

The Rev. Andrew Linzey, director of the Centre for Theology and Ethics at Essex University, England, admits that Christian theology ‘served long and well the oppressors of slaves, women and animals. It took 1900 years for theologians to question seriously the morality of slavery and even longer, the oppression of women. #olHolcombe wrote confidentlytof slaery a the @

But there are indications that the Christian Churches are rethinking the role of humans' relationship to animals and there is a steadily increasing amount of serious scholarship addressing the theme of human responsibility to the created order.

Archbishop Robert Runcie warned in 1988 that “our concept of God forbids the idea of a cheap creation, of a throw-away universe in which everything is expendable save human existence."

It is this view of animals as soulless, lowly beings which helped the growing commercial commodification of animals as subjects to be exploited in animal husbandry, in factory farming and as subjects for entertainment.

Marjorie Spiegel, in her book The Dreaded Comparison - Human and Animal Slavery (1966) describes the hunting and trapping of slaves: the branding; the transport ships where more than half the occupants typically died in the dreaded Middle Passage; the break-up of families and lovers at auctions; the rapes; the beatings; the forced labour and the subjugation to every whim of the master. Substitute 'animal' for 'slave' and one has a snapshot of what routinely happens to non-human animals.

In the late 1960's, respected philosophers raised important ethical issues. Prof. Peter Singer in his 1976 book Animal Liberation elaborated on the concept of 'speciesism'. He argued that speciesism was very much like racism and sexism, which made arbitrary distinctions between individuals, based on colour and sex. He went on to define animals' moral status according to their capacity to suffer.

In his subsequent book in 1984, 'The Case for Animal Rights,' Lawyer Tom Regan went on to accord rights to all creatures that could be the subject of a life and had qualities such as memory, beliefs, preferences and emotional status. Not least of these rights he considered to be the right to life.

Prof. Steven M. Wise of Harvard Law School, in his book 'Rattling the Cage. Toward Legal Rights for Animals (2000) repeatedly makes the point that just as the ancient world regarded slaves (and sometimes women) as personal property, our own society until recently did so as well. Slaves, like animals, were considered incapable of reason, intelligence, or any higher-order thinking and could be bought, sold or discarded because they were owned. Disregard for the living being which does not have legal rights, Wise says, threatens the disregard for all living beings. These are arguments that would be of interest not only to those who are interested in animal rights, but human rights as well.

The Animal Rights movement, once considered beyond the pale as was the human rights- and feminism movements, today has some very well respected proponents and is rapidly achieving mainstream approval.

Beatrice Wiltshire is a resident of Somerset West and writes in her personal capacity.