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Animal rights shows mismatched values in U.S.
Early this semester, there was a commercial on the radio that warned listeners about the daily death of thousands. Could they be talking about women killed by domestic violence, sick children in third-world countries or shooting victims? Not even close. The commercial served to stir people's compassion for animals killed in shelters, lamenting the death of these surplus pets. The acceptance of claims that animals have rights too, legislation outlawing animal testing and the vilification of pet ownership shows a disturbing trend in America. Human life has become less important and is less valued than that of animals. Leftist activists push for society to consider animals as equal to humans and to protect their life in the face of cruelty and exploitation. At the same time the left—and some in the right—condone the systematic and sanitized murder of thousands of unborn humans each year. What does it say about a society that will easily discourage mistreatment of animals, but very easily encourage women to abort their pregnancies? Are we so willing to preserve the lives of animals, but in the same breath say that someone, who in a few months would be an integral and active part of society, has no right to take his or her first breath? It says that people are perfectly complacent about taking rights from those who deserve them and giving them to those that do not. In other words, we legislate and take rights from humans and give them to animals, whose only uses are utility, research or companionship. The same idea applied elsewhere—we take rights from unborn humans and abolish them completely. Leftist animal righters say we must protect animals from powerful corporations that would abuse them—to protect the weak from the strong. Where is this same zealous protection for unborn children? If a simple animal has the right to be considered as equal to a human, is an unborn child so worthless that it has no rights at all? The natural rights of this potential human are taken away and he or she is left at the mercy of another, more powerful person who decides whether he or she lives or dies. One human is made more equal than another. It is exactly the same situation victims of genocide face when an executioner has sole determination whether an individual goes on living or not. There is a big movement along the Earth Liberation Front to use violent means to accomplish an end to environmental abuse. There is much worldwide sentiment that condones this—maybe even some students and faculty at Fresno State? Why is it socially acceptable to bomb an animal laboratory, and be hailed as a defender of morality, but abortion protesters are condemned as intolerant and invasive? Shouldn’t even those who take violent measures against abortion be just as socially condoned? Why is there legislation that keeps pro-life protesters away from abortion hospitals when the government will do little to remove squatters from logging land? It comes down to conscience. For people to say they sympathize with cute little animals, give money to environmentalists and vote to pass legislation banning hunting when they themselves haven’t even seen wildlife outside a zoo, it gives that person a chance to feel good about themselves—they’re a few more morality points higher than that guy wearing leather shoes. Maybe that’s true in the end, but it’s a double standard. No one who thinks animals have any rights can hold true to these ideals and simultaneously advocate abortion—for if the least of Earth’s living creatures have the right to live, how much more does an unborn baby have that right? The person who supports abortion and advocates animal rights has a very shoddy grip on reality. This person does not hold a consistent sense of morals, and has laid hold of an overdeveloped love for animals, but at the same time has become a hater of the most basic of human rights. The prevalence of this idea in America is unfortunate and does not speak well for the moral integrity of our society,
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