If we do recognise that Emma deserved her life, then, because they are not in any justifiable sense any different from Emma, we must also recognise the rights of the trillions of other individuals that we slaughter each year for spurious and fabricated reasons.
Only veganism recognises the rights of all individuals—whatever their species—to own their bodies and live their lives so I see it like this. If Emma deserved to live, we need to be vegan.
Shih-Tzu...
There’s a story that’s causing outrage in the media at the moment, about
a healthy dog named Emma who was slaughtered and cremated so that her ashes
could be buried along with her deceased owner. The comments were predictably
scathing, railing against ‘cruelty’, disputing the legality of the deed and
expressing contempt for those who carried out the final request of Emma’s
deceased owner.
Before I go on, let’s get the situation in perspective by pausing for an
analogy.
Consider...
What if someone had requested that they be buried with their most treasured
photographs or some deeply sentimental possessions like books, or items of
clothing, jewellery, or ornaments? Or like the pharaohs and some other
cultures of the ancient world, what if they had requested that some (or
many) precious item(s) that had been significant in life, be buried with
them? I’ve recently heard tales of people choosing to be buried in a prized
car. I don’t suppose many would see an ethical problem with such notions,
apart from the total impracticality of the space it would take up if
everyone was to do it. I think the general consensus would be a shrug,
indicating that although it may be incomprehensible why anyone would want to
do the more extreme things, we recognise others’ right to choose what they
do with their own possessions.
With me so far? Why are we all so fine with this, do you think? The answer
is breathtakingly simple. Every one of us is thinking about inanimate
objects. They’re things; perhaps precious to the deceased but they’re
clearly not other living individuals. In fact that’s the point at which we
all begin to get uncomfortable and—let’s be honest—rather judgemental;
the point where we hear about funeral rituals where the living are, or were,
interred or immolated alongside the deceased, whether as slaves destined to
serve the dead in some hoped-for afterlife, or for some other reason. That’s
where it becomes a completely different matter for the majority of us.
Okay, so what’s actually different about this situation involving Emma? I’ve
seen outraged comments, seeking to convey something so obvious that it
almost defied expression. Emma was a living individual. She was healthy and
clearly not ready to die. It’s clear that almost every single person
expressing an opinion totally ‘gets’ the concept of Emma’s life, and her
right to live it, at a deeply instinctive level. We can all see the immense
injustice of what was done to this innocent and blameless little creature.
We can all recognise the betrayal of this little dog who simply wanted—and
deserved—to carry on living her healthy life.
Wake-up call
Yet in fact, what was done to Emma is a perfect illustration of the key
legal definition as property that underpins every nonvegan choice that any
of us has ever made, a definition without which it is questionable whether
nonvegan ‘choices’ would even be legal.
So this is where we have to all wake up from the cosy land of make-believe
and the myths with which we are indoctrinated from childhood. Whatever we
may fondly imagine about the world in which we live, the laws, the
regulations, even the governing and commercial structures that enable a
nonvegan way of life and facilitate our demands as consumers are designed to
make what happened to Emma perfectly legitimate and not even open to
question. And they absolutely have to be for our actions to continue. Read
on if you find that shocking.
But...There are laws!
Such legislation as exists relating to members of nonhuman species certainly
bestows no protection whatsoever upon them for the vast majority of the vile
and unthinkable practices that our species inflicts on them. This brief talk
by Lesli Bisgould, Canada’s first animal rights lawyer, explains the reality
so well.
WATCH VIDEO: It's time to re-evaluate our relationships with animals (youtube)
Other animals are legally defined as the property of our species.
Every time a similar situation evokes a widespread emotive response in the
way that Emma’s slaughter has, and I write about it as I did about Cecil the
lion, and the floods in Carolina, it surprises me how few people had
appreciated all the terrible implications of ‘the property status of
animals’. Although the phrase is one that many activists, including myself,
have used, it’s clear that few recognise the true significance of the words;
few understand what it truly means for a living, breathing individual who
values life and living, to be the property of another species that values
them only for the use that can be made from them.
It needs to be stressed that this ‘property status’ is not some legal
technicality that prevents every other species from sharing in the
privileges that humans accord themselves in this world that we are
destroying at a breathtaking rate. It’s not some legal hocus-pocus that’s
needed so we don’t have to give members of other species the right to vote
or drive vehicles. ‘The property status of animals’ has very real and
utterly predictable consequences that are as sickening as they are
inevitable; it means we can do what we like to them and in the vast majority
of instances, commit no offence.
This status that our species accords to other living creatures whereby we
designate them as our ‘property’, is the one that facilitates that carton of
breast milk in the fridge, that dead flesh, those eggs on the supermarket
shelves. It’s what enables zoos and animal testing laboratories to exist,
how we manage to use others for forced labour and ‘entertainment’ without
being held to account for the absence of consent from our victims.
But... It’s cruelty!
Please see my previous discussion about this subjective concept we call
‘cruelty’. Basically it’s a word that can’t even be objectively defined – it
means whatever we want it to mean, whatever suits our purposes.
Once we have decided that the life of another sentient being has no worth
other than to be used for our convenience; once we have decided their
desperate wish to live unharmed and in peace is an irrelevance, their status
as our property facilitates any and all that we need to do to indulge
ourselves.
And for as long as the human animals who make up the laws they choose to
recognise, grant themselves the power of life and death over members of
other animal species; to buy them or sell them or even give them away
without being in breach of any law; if we can disregard their preferences
and needs to suit our own justifications, then regardless of our intentions,
they will continue to be considered to be our property and concern about
‘cruelty‘ is an irrelevant effort to salve our conscience for the atrocity.
But... It should be illegal—we need to change the laws!’
Here we have an example of the stark inconsistency with which our species
regards other animals. Here, because Emma, a named individual with whom we
all empathise, is being considered and championed, we have a situation where
it is crystal clear to so many that we have a moral duty to protect healthy
individuals from actions that we all recognise as completely against their
interests. And it should be noted that slaughter, the usual escape for the
majority of our victims, is always against their interests.
Yet on the other side of that same coin the majority hold a contradictory
stance regarding the animal species that it suits us to use to death and/or
slaughter in infancy to gorge on their dead flesh. The very fact that as
‘property’ in the eyes of the law, they have no rights and no recognition of
their interests, is what enables our brutal use of them, and the suggestion
that it could ever become illegal is often used as an unsubtle suggestion
that any such intervention to protect them would add insult to injury by
potential infringement of ‘personal’ choice.
I can attribute the following quote only to an unknown law professor.
‘Law has no meaning or relevance outside of society. It both shapes and is shaped by the society in which it functions. Law is made by humans. It protects, controls, burdens and liberates humans, non-human animals, nature, and inanimate physical objects. Like the humans who make it, Law is biased, noble, aspirational, short-sighted, flawed, messy, unclear, brilliant, and constantly changing.‘
In short, it is society that must change in a way that begins at the level
of the individual, and this must happen long before any legislative change
can occur. Society as a whole and as a collection of individuals, must first
acknowledge what values our laws should enshrine, before that legislation
can be adopted.
And so back to Emma
There is no biological or other difference between the species that we
brutalise for consumption, and for other purposes such as ‘entertainment’,
forced labour, laboratory test subjects, surgical spare parts or simply, as
is the case for so many that we consider to be nonhuman family members, as
companions or ‘pets’. And in general the law does not differentiate.
So did Emma deserve to live because she was not a thing, not an object like
a photograph, an item of clothing, or an ornament? Well, here’s the thing.
We can’t have it both ways:
If we do recognise that Emma deserved her life, then, because they are not
in any justifiable sense any different from Emma, we must also recognise the
rights of the trillions of other individuals that we slaughter each year for
spurious and fabricated reasons.
Only veganism recognises the rights of all individuals—whatever their
species—to own their bodies and live their lives so I see it like this. If
Emma deserved to live, we need to be vegan.
Please read followup article: A brief thought about words: euthanasia