A n i m
a l W r i t e s © sm
The official ANIMAL RIGHTS ONLINE newsletter
Publisher ~ EnglandGal@aol.com
Issue # 07/26/00
Editor ~ JJswans@aol.com
Journalists ~ Park StRanger@aol.com
~
MicheleARivera@aol.com
~ SavingLife@aol.com
THE EIGHT ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE ARE:
1 ~ Personhood For Primates? by Ellen Sung
2 ~ Dogma, Dogs, and Death by Marc Bekoff
3 ~ Thoughts From A Vegan Subscriber by
Zerbeena@aol.com
4 ~ Canadian AR Email List
5 ~ Conference Announcement
6 ~ Okra For Me, Argentina from Park
StRanger@aol.com
7 ~ A Malamute Dog (poem)
8 ~ Quote To Remember
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Personhood For Primates?
by Ellen Sung, Policy.com
http://www.policy.com/news/dbrief/dbriefarc732.asp
For decades, the animal-rights movement has worked incrementally to try to
change the way that people treat animals. Members of the movement have argued
for laws preventing cruelty against animals used for entertainment and
agricultural purposes, crusaded against the trade of furs and publicly decried
animal experimentation for human drugs and cosmetics. Now, as some of the most
active believers gather outside Washington, D.C., for the Animal Rights 2000
Conference, the movement's biggest meeting in three years, some animal-rights
activists are fighting for the most far-reaching legal change they have ever
proposed -- the declaration of "personhood" for animals.
"For four thousand years, a thick and impenetrable legal wall has
separated all human from all nonhuman animals. On one side, even the most
trivial interests of a single species -- ours -- are jealously guarded,"
wrote Harvard law professor Steven Wise, one of the nation's foremost animal
law experts, in his recent book, Rattling the Cage.
"On the other side of that wall lies the legal refuse of
an entire kingdom [who]
are 'legal things.' Their
most basic and fundamental interests -- their pains,
their lives, their freedoms -- are intentionally ignored, often
maliciously
trampled, and routinely abused."
Of particular interest to Wise and others advocating "personhood" are
chimpanzees and bonobos, sometimes referred to as "pygmy
chimpanzees." The DNA of these primates differs by less than one percent
from humans, making them popular for use in research for currently uncurable
diseases, such as AIDS.
But the number of these animals has been greatly reduced. One century ago,
there were some 5 million wild chimpanzees in Africa; today, there are only
200,000. Wise argues that the depletion is because thousands of chimpanzees and
bonobos are killed every year, not only in medical experiments, but also
because they are prized by some cultures in sub-Saharan Africa as a delicacy.
Because they are so genetically similar to humans -- and because they have been
found to have mental abilities strikingly similar to humans -- chimpanzees
should be given a bill of rights, Wise argues.
"Justice entitles chimpanzees and bonobos to legal
personhood and to the
fundamental legal rights of bodily integrity and bodily
liberty," Wise wrote in
his book. "Their abuse and their murder must be forbidden
for what they are:
genocide."
Prof. Gary L. Francione, who was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Sandra
Day O'Connor and who now teaches animal law at Rutgers University, said in a
The New York Times article that a precedent could be set by lawsuits filed on
behalf of gorillas which hold that "they should be declared to be
'persons' under the Constitution," with constitutional rights.
The nascent field of animal law has gained considerable attention in the last
five years. Since 1999, three major law schools -- Harvard, Georgetown, and
Rutgers -- have decided to offer courses in animal law, and the discipline even
has its own legal journal, run by students from Northwestern and Lewis and
Clark. Much of the academic work in the field concentrates on comparisons
between laws that freed blacks from slavery and civil rights law, and current
laws treating animals as property.
Existing anti-cruelty legislation, said Georgetown Law professor Valerie
Stanley in an interview with Campus Report, was crafted in the 1800s when
animals were used for labor, and is obsolete now. “Every time our society has
to rethink whether we are going to include or exclude a certain group,” she
stated, “we throw up economic reasons why it’s not feasible to do so… That’s
been done with slavery. It’s been done with women. Animals, to a certain
extent, could be considered the next frontier," said Stanley.
One goal of animal law is to increase the penalties for animal cruelty -- in
some states, the crime has been upgraded from a misdemeanor to a felony -- and
to create legal precedents in which animals are seen as more than ordinary
property. In some cases, courts have increased damages for loss of
companionship or for emotional distress when a pet is killed. A federal appeals
court ruled in 1998 that a human zoo visitor could sue to get companionship for
chimpanzees.
"Anything that we can do to get the public to regard animals as the
sentient beings that they are, separate from how they can entertain us or feed
us or clothe us, is a good thing," says Lisa Lange, director of policy and
communications for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
But other legal scholars argue that declaring "personhood" for
animals would undermine the American legal system. "Would we then proffer
rights to whales and dolphins? Rats and mice? Would even bacteria have
rights?" said Richard A. Epstein, a professor at the University of Chicago
Law School in an article in The Seattle Times. "There would be nothing
left of human society if we treated animals not as property but as independent
holders of rights."
Much public sentiment exists against the notion of granting animals'
"personhood." Hunting and fishing groups oppose the idea of granting
animals more rights, as do farmers and livestock groups, who say that the
animal-law movement is trying to put them out of business. And pharmaceutical
companies and research laboratories are concerned that the medical
experimentation may be curtailed or banned, if rights activists get their way.
The article mentions:
Animal-rights activists want to change the legal status of
animals.
Animal Rights Law Center at Rutgers University
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Animal Legal Defense Fund
Animal Rights Law
Animal Law Journal
Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals by Steven Wise
Animal Concerns Community
And, of course, the poll:
Should primates be given legal personhood status?
So far:
Y
N TOTAL
NUMBER 277 41 318
PERCENTAGE 87
13 100%
Be sure to check out their Daily Briefing archive for more issue briefs.
Personhood for Primates, Animals
Legal Pioneers Seek to Raise Lowly Status of Animals
August 19, 1999
Writing for The New York Times, William Glaberson examines the new field of law
that is emerging around the issue of animal rights. More and more law schools
are offering courses in animal law, he says, and more and more lawyers are
representing animals in court.
The Case For the Personhood of Gorillas
July 3, 2000
In this report for Koko.org, Francine Patterson and Wendy Gordon argue that any
individual who is 'self-aware, intelligent, emotional, communicative, has
memories and purposes of her own' has a claim to basic moral rights, whether
that individual is human or a gorilla. The subject of the report is a
26-year-old gorilla named Koko.
Animals as Property
July 3, 2000
In the introduction to Animal Law, Gary L. Francione argues 'social attitudes
about animals are hopelessly confused.' Animals are at the same time revered as
members of the family as pets and used as clothing, experimented on and eaten.
This complexity, he argues, makes it difficult for animal-rights activists to
change the legal status of 'nonhumans.'
Legal Status Should Remain Same
We the People (and Other Animals)…
September 20, 1999
In this editorial for The New York Times, Frans B. M. De Waal writes about the
trend of animal law cases now being heard, which argue that animals deserve
solid and uncontestable rights. Such cases are logically and morally flawed he
says, arguing that animals cannot become full members of society.
Some Animals are More Equal Than Others
December 2, 1999
Brad Knickerbocker, writing for The Christian Science Monitor, reports that the
way animals are protected in court is changing in a profound and disruptive
way. He argues that the law must
continue to protect animals from cruelty, but that it should not raise them to
equal status with humans.
Another Monkey Trial
September 20, 1999
According to John Leo, in his article for U.S. News & World Report, efforts
by animal-rights lawyers to use slavery-era statutes to fight for animals’
legal rights are how “rights-talk” becomes a parody of itself. “Any radical
notion that vastly inflates the concept of rights and requires a lot more
litigation,” he writes, “is apt to take root in the law schools.”
From:
vrc@tiac.net (Maynard S. Clark)
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Dogma, Dogs, and Death
by Marc Bekoff - bekoffm@spot.Colorado.EDU
Congratulations to Terje Langeland for writing an
excellent and well-researched essay about the dog labs at CU's medical school
and the person who defends them relentlessly - and religiously - Dr. Ron
Banks, the veterinarian for the Health Sciences Center (HSC) (Colorado Daily,
14-16, 2000). In this essay, I was quoted as saying that Dr. Banks had a
passion for fighting rights advocates and for defending his job. Who wouldn't,
for $137,000 a year? A rather sizable sum for condemning numerous animals to
death and refusing to talk about it, don't you think!. Ah, we should all have
it so easy. This article makes a number of very important points, but one that
simply needs more public airing and a great deal more public interest
concerns accountability - an individual's responsibility to engage in public discourse
about their jobs at state supported institutions. Dr. Banks, like other of his
colleagues at the HSC, refuses to talk to the Daily, for example, because he
thinks he doesn't have to. Their spokeswoman, Sarah Ellis, defends this
position, and also takes a jab at the animal rights movement in a single
breath, when the question to her had absolutely nothing at all to do with
animal rights. Wow, that's great - the person responsible for communicating the
goings-on at the HSC supports their refusal to speak because they claim they
were misquoted. Life's pretty easy isn't it - do what you want to do, get paid
royally for it, and blow off your critics. Perhaps that's why many people are
critical of academics. This self-serving arrogance makes me ill. I, too, teach
at CU, and I have an obligation to respond not only to my supporters but also
to my critics. Indeed, one might easily argue that I and others have more of an
obligation to engage critics rather than to thank people for their support -
sort of like preaching to the converted and getting nowhere - Al Gore thanking
democrats for supporting him or Ron Banks telling his allies at the HSC that he
appreciates their support.
I'd like to ask you all to get involved in this or other issues. Public
servants, and that's what we are, just can't bow out of public discourse
because it's inconvenient or because they don't like what their critics say.
I'd like to see some solid examples of where Dr. Banks and others have been
misquoted. Indifference is costly and where animals' lives are involved apathy
is deadly. Write letters, make calls,
and let administrators and legislators know how you feel about the veil of
silence that is allowed to occur because in many ways we allow to happen. Let
me end on a more positive note - the number of medical students opting out of
the dog labs at CU has increased from 5 - 31 in the past two years, and many
medical schools don't even have dog labs. No wonder Dr. Banks and others don't
want to talk about CU's dog labs - would you if you got paid a healthy salary
to be part of a questionable chain of events the result of which animals are
condemned to death and your critics were making clear and steady progress,
critics who supposedly are ignorant of the real facts?
Marc Bekoff
EPO Biology
CU, Boulder
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Thoughts From Vegan Subscriber
by Zerbeena@aol.com
I was a vegetarian before I started subscribing
to ARO. My reason was simple:
killing animals for food we didn't need was unethical and sick.
There was no excuse or justification anyone could throw in my path to dissuade
me.
I still drank milk and ate rennet-less cheese and eggs. My thought was
that no one had to DIE for me to consume these things, so it was okay, and in
keeping with my unbending ethics. The concept of veganism seemed so
extreme to me, admittedly, almost like lunacy.
Then, I got a grip on the whole picture. I have you guys at ARO to thank
for this, because I didn't know (or deluded myself perhaps) how milk production
was linked to veal or how a simple egg is the end result of a tortured and
miserable life of a caged chicken. They couldn't be MORE connected, and I
was a participant in their suffering because I couldn't give up my damn cheese
pizza and lattes.
I am now a vegan, and my whole sense of being has changed. I wasn't even
aware of the burden my conscience was carrying around until I made this
switch. My eyes feel more open than ever and my body feels better too.
As I have explained to my dumbfounded friends who groan, "Oh, Jeez.
What's left to eat now?", I feel significantly better than when I made the
meat-eating to vegetarian shift. It's like this nagging sense of
hypocrisy is 100% gone, and has been absent since I became vegan.
Strangely, it was much easier than I had imagined. I had big plans to
order one last cheese pizza, a large, and greedily eat the whole thing myself
before I swore off all dairy forever. I picked up the phone and ordered,
"A medium vegetarian pizza, no cheese." The cheese pizza could
never happen again, not even this one last time.
That was it. I was over the hump before I was even aware of it. My
body will no longer allow itself to consume things that are against my soul's
integrity and ethics. I have arrived!
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Canadian AR Email List
Announcement of a new email list for Canadian
animal rights activists to supplement a corresponding website was provided for
our subscribers.
www.AnimalRightsCanada.com
The point of the list is to allow discussion between Canadian activists, to
find people in your area, share news and events, and possibly (hopefully) plan
national campaigns!
Signing up is pretty easy, send an email to listproc@envirolink.org with:
subscribe ar-canada your name
ie - subscribe ar-canada
Pat Doe
in the body of the message. After that, you should get a confirmation
message with instructions to post to the list, and you're set!
If you have any questions or would like to be signed up manually, send a note
to dave@earthfuture.com
Feel free to pass this message on to other Canadian activists!
Animal Liberation Now!
www.AnimalRightsCanada.com
Source: <dave@earthfuture.com>
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Conference Announcement
Don't Procrastinate . . . Space is Very Limited . . . Register Now!
PLEASE JOIN US FOR A CONFERENCE ON
Animals, Nature & the New Millennium
WHEN: Saturday, September 30, 8:30 AM- 5 PM &
Sunday, October 1, 9 AM-3:30 PM
WHERE: Algonquin Hotel, 59 West 44th St, New York, NY 10036 (212)840-6800
COST: $60 for both days/paid in advance
$80 for both days/at the door if available
$40 Single day registration
SPECIAL KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY:
Gary Francione - Professor of Law, Rutgers University
SPEAKERS INCLUDE:
* Anna Charleton - Adjunct Professor of Law, Rutgers University
* Bill Clark - International Program Director, FoA
* Gail Eisnitz - Author of Slaughterhouse
* Brooks Fahy - Director, Predator Defense Institute
* Suzanne Gerber - Editor, Vegetarian Times Magazine
* Meryl Hoffman - Founder, On the Issues Magazine
* Peter Kostmeyer - Director, Zero Population Growth
* Brad Miller - Director, Humane Farming Association
* Jessica Roach - Public Citizen
* Paul Shapiro - Co-Founder, Compassion Over Killing
* Bill Mannetti - President, Animal Rights Front
SPEAKERS AND PANELS ON:
"Our Overburdened Planet"
"What We Eat and Why It Matters"
"The BioTech Revolution"
"Grassroots Activism"
"Sexism, Racism, Homophobia and Animal Exploitation:They're
All Connected"
"Anti-Poaching Campaigns in Africa"
Come join some of our movement's leading thinkers and strategists for a weekend
of stimulating discussion on our movement and its future. We look forward
to seeing you in September!
NAME
________________________________________________________________
ADDRESS _____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
DAYTIME PHONE
(________)______________________________________________
YES, I want to attend the Animals, Nature and the New Millennium
conference on
September 30-October 1! Enclosed is my registration of:
__ $60 for both days
__ $40 for single day attendance __ Sept. 30 __ Oct. 1
Make checks payable to Friends of Animals and mail to:
777 Post Road, Darien, CT 06820
NOTE: You must make your hotel reservations separately with the
Algonquin
by calling the number listed above.
Source: DapperD72@aol.com
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Okra For Me, Argentina
from Park StRanger@aol.com
4 cups fresh okra, cut into large chunks
1 15 oz. can cooked black beans
1 small onion, diced
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
1/2 cup celery diced
1/2 to one cup green bell pepper, diced (or mix of green, red and yellow
peppers)
2 or 3 medium tomatoes, diced
2/3 cup frozen corn
three or four garlic cloves, minced
2 eight ounce cans tomato sauce
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried parsley
hot pepper flakes to taste (all herbs can be varied to your taste)
1 cup red wine (optional)
In a large skillet, with a bit of water, stir saute okra, onion, jalapeno,
green pepper, celery, corn, tomatoes and garlic. After the fresh okra is
tender, about fifteen minutes, add the beans, tomato sauce and herbs and simmer
on low for about twenty minutes. Add a bit of wine or water to desired
consistency.
Another nice optional touch is sliced vegan sausage links or hot dogs.
Garnish with lime slices and cilantro. Serve with brown rice.
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A Malamute Dog
by Pat O'Cotter
You can't tell me God would have Heaven
So a man couldn't mix with his friends--
That we are doomed to meet disappointment
when we come to the place the trail ends.
That would be a low-grade sort of Heaven
And I'd never regret a damned sin
If I rush up to the gates white and pearly
and they don't let my Malamute in.
For I know it would never be homelike
No matter how golden the strand,
If I lose out that pal-loving feeling
Of a Malamute's nose on my hand.
Submitted by Richard Corsano RAJC@prodigy.net
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Quote To Remember
"Men dig their
graves with their own teeth, and die more by those instruments
than by all weapons of their enemies."
~ Pythagoras 4th century B.C.
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Susan Roghair - EnglandGal@aol.com
Animal Rights Online
P O Box 7053
Tampa, Fl 33673-7053
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1395/
-=Animal Rights Online=-
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