In all the fallout surrounding this weekend’s stories about a camel lying in its own feces in an undersized pen at a Toronto petting zoo, one question being asked is whether animals should be granted some inalienable rights much like humans have
In all the fallout surrounding this weekend’s stories about a camel lying in its own feces in an undersized pen at a Toronto petting zoo, one question being asked is whether animals should be granted some inalienable rights much like humans have.
It’s really not much of a stretch. Morally, we already believe that most animals – whether cows, dogs or camels – should be given basic things like adequate food, shelter and protection from abuse and suffering. We already have provincial guidelines and institutions like the Ontario Society for the Protection of Animals to ensure these basic guidelines are being met by animal owners.
And as a society, we have advanced to a point where it seems unimaginable that there was even a debate over allowing women to vote or blacks to have the same basic rights as white people. So to put basic animal rights into legislation should not be considered a great leap.
The problem is that we view animals as lesser beings than ourselves. We use animals for food, for transportation and for entertainment. Animals don’t have the same intelligence 