Give Up Blog

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Has the Animal Rights Movement Given Up on Human Rights?

"Give Up" is a funny theme, but in all seriousness, we shouldn't give up on certain principles. Human rights, for instance, are not abandonable. Increasingly, I think that the animal rights movement has made abandum of human rights. Let me explain...

The Journal reported yesterday that Chinese authorities have killed 50,000 dogs in rural Moulding in response to a rabies outbreak. The rabies outbreak killed several people and sickened hundreds, but the cold overreaction of the government has attracted criticism:

Even Communist Party-backed newspapers attacked the Mouding move as "extraordinarily crude" and "cold-blooded." With the Internet spreading news of the killings around the world, the animal-rights group PETA called for a boycott of all Chinese products, and tens of thousands of surfers signed an online petition urging the U.S. ambassador to China to recommend widespread rabies vaccinations across that country.

Okay PETA. Let's think about this. We're going to boycott China because some rednecks killed a bunch of dogs? What about all the people who are killed in China? What about the hundreds of thousands of people killed in Darfur? You know, humans. People like you and me, with spouses and children and dreams and memories and meaning in life. Why don't we boycott for them?

In light of the horrific human abuses that just seemed to be ignored by PETA features on China, I'm beginning to have contempt for the animal rights movement. What does it say when one cares so intensely for the welfare of cute, cuddly animals while glossing over incredible human rights abuses? Maybe its members find it more comfortable to care about cute animals than humans, who aren't always furry and cuddly. Maybe it's that the dogs clearly have done nothing wrong, while we're not so sure always about the humans. Doesn't it suggest that the animal rights movement has given up on human rights?

For those who really care about animal welfare, I'd suggest that they'd start by ensuring fair treatment for humans. A lack of respect for human rights is an impediment to reaching the goal of humane treatment of animals. If we can't agree that human rights are sacred, if we can't boycott China for abuses against citizens, how can we reach a point where other animals' rights are respected?

4 Comments:

Reen said...

I don't know. You're sort of imagining that everyone in the world has only one issue that they can care about, and that by supporting PETA, people give up on caring about anything else.

There's no reason to think that there is such an either/or scenario. It's perfectly possible to give money to PETA and to Amnesty International. Or to feel badly both about starving puppy dogs and starving kids.

PETA isn't exactly aces in my book, but I think you're perpetuating the fallacy that by discussing issue A, a person must not care at all about issues B-Z. That's like saying that because George Will has written 25 columns on fiscal responsibility and none on condemning men who beat their wives, he must be okay with beating your wife. He's likely not. It's just not something he has the expertise on to write columns about.

Similarly, PETA is an organization founded for the sole purpose of promoting animal rights. The fact that it does not explicitly promote human rights is not proof that it doesn't want them; it simply isn't PETA's mission to promote them. There are other agencies with that mission, and they are far better suited to bring such issues to the public's attention than PETA.

10:59 PM, August 09, 2006

Reen said...

Actually, I just googled "Boycott China" and found that people are currently boycotting the People's Republic for any number of reasons, including

* to free Tibet
* to promote democracy
* to save American jobs
* to protest the murder of dissidents

So in answer to your question about why no one can boycott China for human rights problems, it appears that they are. It's just these blanket boycotts, like PETA's, are unlikely to be successful, as China currently makes EVERYTHING.

11:08 PM, August 09, 2006

Buck Mulligan said...

>PETA isn't exactly aces in my book, but I think you're perpetuating the fallacy that by discussing issue A, a person must not care at all about issues B-Z.

You're exactly right. I need to sharpen this more. What I'm trying to say is that the focus, the intensity of attention focused on the dogs is the problem. It's so intense, and the lack of attention to other issues says something about the animal rights people. I'm going to expand on this in a future post, with ancedotal stories from public defender issues here, and this will be clearer.

It's not an either/or issue. I'm not trying to set up a false dilemma. It's the degree of attention that the animal issues attract versus the human issues.

12:13 AM, August 10, 2006

Reen said...

I see where you're going, although I'm not sure why the strength of the attention on the dog issue is so intense. It likely arises from the interplay of a number of issues.

* Fatigue from the sheer number of wrong things going on with people around the world (starvation here, war there, flood there, cultural insanity over there).

* The apparent simplicity of the problem -- fixing the world for dogs would appear to be a far easier and clearer problem than fixing it for people. Hand out the milkbones and we're all done.

* People just do have crazy and complicated feelings for animals. Particularly in the west, where pets are often valued above family members for the mute and uncomplicated love and companionship they can provide. Their utter dependence on humans (it's not like your dog is going to pull himself up by his bootstraps, as a child who has undergone hardship might) also probably spurs people to defend them.

7:55 AM, August 10, 2006