Empathy enhances our humanity
As a sociologist, animal rights activist, and American Jew who lost many family members in the Holocaust, I take serious issue with the conclusions reached by Colleen Carroll Campbell in her recent column. Nazis’ interest in animals had little to do with making people more compassionate toward non-humans and was the antithesis of the principles of social justice that underlie the animal rights movement [“Animal-rights extremism endangers human rights,” Aug 6].
Nazi’s creation of a moral hierarchy that placed Aryans at the top, non-human animals in the middle and Jews at the bottom was used to justify their extermination of people they considered “subhuman.” In letter and in spirit, many Nazi animal protection laws attacked practices that were considered to be particularly Jewish, like kosher slaughter and vivisection (the latter of which Nazis perceived Jews to be heavily involved in). While some Nazi officers were vegetarian, killing animals for food was not prohibited and evidence shows that Nazi scientists conducted experiments on animals.
Those who advocate for the rights of animals do not ascribe inferior moral status to humans– quite the contrary. We believe that all thinking, feeling individuals have the right to live their lives and be accorded respect and that treating some beings- human or not- cruelly simply because they look different from us, don’t speak our language or are weaker than us is morally unjustifiable.
An increased sense of compassion and empathy for all others enhances our humanity, it does not diminish it.
Justin Goodman
Research Associate Supervisor
Laboratory Investigations Department
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Norfolk, Va.
Justin,
What is your point? Should I not opt for the steak on the grill and go for the veggie burger???
“Those who advocate for the rights of animals do not ascribe inferior moral status to humans– quite the contrary. We believe that all thinking, feeling individuals have the right to live their lives and be accorded respect”
Exactly, Justin. People I know who are active in the animal rights movement are almost always active in human rights issues. Compassion is compassoin.
The simple fact is that there is a lot of money to be made in abusing animals whether you’re Ringling Bros or GlaxoSmithKline. These monied interests will do everything they can, including lying and distorting, to destroy the “radical” notion that animals have a right to their own lives, free of abuse from humans.
“What is your point? Should I not opt for the steak on the grill and go for the veggie burger???
— budb1969
8:27 pm August 11th, 2009 ”
Why would you cause suffering when you don’t have to?
“The simple fact is that there is a lot of money to be made in abusing animals whether you’re Ringling Bros or GlaxoSmithKline”
you left off one large offender, PETA.
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/pressRelease_detail.cfm/release/109
Actually, Si Vis, many of the biggest coporate abusers of animals decided to get together and fight PeTA and other groups that promote compassion. Their name? The “Center for Consumer Freedom.” That’s where you got your link. I’ll borrow the cheap technique used by the author of the original article: that’s like critiquing Jews by quoting Nazis.
Other groups they’ve criticized are Mothers Against Drunk Driving and Center for Science in the Public Interest. They were started with funding money from, among other, Phillp Morris. Their interested is preserving the profits of things that are basically unhealthy, so they’re not exactly an unbiased source, and certainly they have no moral weight. They’re all about the benjamins. Sound like a great bunch of folks, no?
As for the activists accused in the article, this is a tired old misrepresentation. The animals they killed were on death rows in area shelters. These shelters used older, painful forms of euthanasia. These dogs were headed for suffering as their last sensation of this earth. The PeTA members took the dogs and euthanized them painlessly, thus sparing them painful deaths. That’s their “crime.”
I don’t agree with PeTA on everything, though I do on most things. However, to imply that they kill dogs for profit is a complete distortion.
“These dogs were headed for suffering as their last sensation of this earth. The PeTA members took the dogs and euthanized them painlessly, thus sparing them painful deaths.-my id
–Isn’t this a perfect metaphor for what Obama-care will do for humans…?
Thanks for your unintended contribution, my id. Not everything you say is completely useless after all.
I read the Colleen Carroll piece last week and it was typical for her. Comparing the suffering of living animals to the cells in a petri dish called stem cell research.
Since animals are living breathing creatures who are capable of feeling pain, and cells in a petri dish are not yet human, have no heart beat, and cannot feel a thing, her comparison is a distortion. A ultra conservative view shared by few in this Country.
Those that have no compassion for animals and care more about some cells in a dish, are not to be trusted, PERIOD! Stem Cell Research is going forward whether Colleen Carroll likes it or not! Millions have hope that this research may lead to discoveries of cures. It is not abortion or even close! Where do you neocons draw the line?
Colleen Caroll Campbell is one of the nuttiest religious fruitcakes out there. She really needs to get laid. I think she is sexually frustrated.
Doc-Gamcock-
In a word — NO
that’s really what’s wrong with the stlouis publicschools; she used to cover them! And she seemed so nice; just shows, you never know what’s in someones sick and twisted black soul; god loves her, tho, cause when you least deserve love is when you need it the most. It would be inappropriate to comment on whether sexual issues are at the heart of such mean stupidity. Though will say that seems true of most conservatives. On the other hand, parents not loving you enough as a child so hard to love yourself or others might be more accurate; not being able to enjoy pleasure of sex or any other thing might be part of that. Worthy of sadness and compassion, not judgment. Tho sometimes hard to resist, and stupidity of ideas, even for a conservative, fair game. See, these are the kinds of people and columns and ideas that give even conservatives a bad name. Conservative one thing, certifiable right wingnut different.