When Human Rights Extend to Nonhumans

The New York Times ^ | 7/13/2008 | DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

[Soliton]

If you caught your son burning ants with a magnifying glass, would it bother you less than if you found him torturing a mouse with a soldering iron? How about a snake? How about his sister?

Does Khalid Shaikh Mohammed — the Guantánamo detainee who claims he personally beheaded the reporter Daniel Pearl — deserve the rights he denied Mr. Pearl? Which ones? A painless execution? Exemption from capital punishment? Decent prison conditions? Habeas corpus?

[Coffee200am]

Monkeys eat bugs, live in trees and eat and drink their own feces, urine and each other. Not one of them can tell you they came from poor but honest parents.

[Grut]

Yup, just animals.

[mikrofon]

If you caught your son burning ants with a magnifying glass, would it bother you less than if you found him torturing a mouse with a soldering iron? How about a snake? How about his sister?

I could really care less about the snake's sister or any other of his relatives...

[lesser_satan]

Does Khalid Shaikh Mohammed — the Guantánamo detainee who claims he personally beheaded the reporter Daniel Pearl — deserve the rights he denied Mr. Pearl? Which ones? A painless execution? Exemption from capital punishment? Decent prison conditions? Habeas corpus?

He deserves to be skinned alive and staked to the ground to be eaten by insects.

[JRios1968]

In my view, KSM deserves to die the same Daniel Pearl did, although with a few twists. A slow beheading with a rusty serrated knife...give him time to reflect, as he heads to meet Allah and Mohammed in Hell, on just what a way to die that is. For a better symbolism, make sure the knife is covered in pig’s blood right before the beheading starts.

[elmer fudd]

The main problem here as I see it is one of semantics. Instead of calling it an animal rights law, (a silly concept), they should call it an animal cruelty law. Society sets limits on what we can do with animals and obviously some animals deserve more protection than others. It doesn't mean an ape is even close to the equal of a human being, just that they are due some protection against abuse. When people start talking about "animal rights" they are walking into the Twilight Zone. What kind of meaningful rights can you grant to an animal after all?

Protecting animals against cruelty is a much more rational proposition. We can agree that animals deserve certain standards of food, care, slaughter conditions, etc...

[A kid with a brain]

Spain does not envision endowing apes with all rights: to drive, to bear arms and so on. Rather, their status would be akin to that of children.

They are adult primates, so why can't they vote as well. Aren't you afraid the apes will riot and bear arms anyway because of the injustice?

[Libertarianize the GOP]

a slave counted as only three-fifths of a person

That is more and less than accurate. Slaves did not count as a person at all, three-fifths only extended the power of the slave holders by increasing their representation in the House of Representatives and the number of electors they selected to elect the President.

[M203M4]

Yes, animals. Not rocks, not dirt. Nor are they people. Just as we treat reptiles better than insects, birds better than reptiles, mammals better than birds, and domestic pets better than livestock, the apes should be at the top of the pyramid of OUR animal resources in terms of their treatment, though still several orders of magnitude below civilized standards for human-human interactions.

Animals do NOT HAVE RIGHTS. Animals are a resource, and WE have a responsibility to care for our resources properly. It is our humanity which gives impetus to respect these animals. Remove humans from the equation and what are these apes? Do they still have "rights" or any value at all? NO! Every piece of existence derives its value from the interactions of humans.

If the great apes need protection, it is our bill of responsibilities which must be amended.

[AZLiberty]

If you caught your son burning ants with a magnifying glass, . . .

I protest the gender profiling that this article opens with. Surely NYT writers "know" that boys and girls are equally likely to burn ants -- if only it weren't for anti-progressive social conditioning.

[Jeff Chandler]

a slave counted as only three-fifths of a person

Anyone who uses that distortion to condemn America is either a liar or an ignoramus.

[Soliton]

protest the gender profiling that this article opens with. Surely NYT writers "know" that boys and girls are equally likely to burn ants

You mare a homophobe for not complaining about gay, lesbian and transgendered being left out. : )

[Soliton]

Slaves did not count as a person at all, three-fifths only extended the power of the slave holders by increasing their representation in the House of Representatives and the number of electors they selected to elect the President.

I hope you are a woman because I love you!. Do you know how few people know this? I have a slavery library, though I don't mention it on my profile. I've made the same argument many times. Welcome wise FRiend!

[Soliton]

He deserves to be skinned alive and staked to the ground to be eaten by insects.

What do you have against insects?

[Dianna]

Oddly enough, Peter Singer is involved in this new law. The same Peter Singer who denies the humanity of handicapped infants.

The products of his warped mind baffle me.

[VOA]

“The same Peter Singer who denies the humanity of handicapped infants.”

Well, at least he’s a bit nicer to at least one aged, infirm person.
(By the way, I highly recommend the book “Do As I Say, Nota As I Do”;
a delicious expose of liberal hypocrisy.)

October 25, 2005, 8:27 a.m.
Moore Hypocrites Than True Believers?
Exposing the Do As I Say (Not As I Do) Left.
http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/schweizer200510250827.asp

The mother of Princeton bioethics professor Peter Singer is lucky that
her son is an hypocrite. Her son is a leading proponent of excising
the undesirable — the imperfect via abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia.
The disabled would fall under there, also, sometimes, the elderly.

Peter Singer’s mother has Alzheimer’s.

Peter Schweizer reports in his new book Do As I Say (Not As I Do):
Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy that “far from embracing his own moral
ethic, Singer hired a group of health care workers to look after her.”

Good for him, he can’t even buy his own poison. (When your ideas are
destructive, at least a little hypocrisy saves a life here and there,
despite the widespread damage you may be doing.)