Jesus loves animals, too
Fighting for our four-legged friends
March 21, 2007
Joshua Duvauchelle
What does Simon Cowell have in common with Heather Mills? How are Pamela Anderson and Fall Out Boy similar? While these celebrities may be very different in terms of personality, they all agree on one thing: animals have rights.
In an interview, the usually cold-hearted Cowell said that he finds the fur trade disturbing, especially the way that dogs are skinned alive. This puts Cowell in alliance with hundreds of animal rights groups around the world. One of the taglines of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the activist group at the forefront of the animal rights movement, is that “Animals are not ours to use.”
Ask people what they think about animal rights and you’ll often be greeted with derision. People think that animal rights puts animals before humans. This isn’t true. But advocates of animal rights know that speciesism is wrong. We don’t have the right to abuse and mistreat other sentient beings. That is why Switzerland officially recognizes animals as “beings” rather than “things.” Germany has gone so far as to add animals to their Constitution, making it the government’s role to protect human and non-human life alike.
The Bible says that only humans are made in the Creator’s image, but how that relates to other beings is open to interpretation. We already know that the “ideal” world in Eden was vegetarian, and it was only after the Flood that God allowed humans to eat meat. Numerous Scriptures, more than can be listed, speak of the value of animals. Ecclesiastes 3:19 says that animals have a soul, with humans having “no advantage” over animals. Psalms 36:6 says the Lord saves animals and humans alike. Deuteronomy 22:6 demands animal welfare. Proverbs 12:10 says that the righteous man cares for his animals. Clearly, all creatures are valued by God.
Opponents of showing compassion to animals argue that we shouldn’t alleviate animal suffering when humans are suffering too. However, animal rights and human issues aren’t exclusive. Making the world a better place for animals makes our world better too.
For example, because of the methods needed to produce meat for food, the animal rights movement advocates vegetarianism. Such a diet doesn’t just help animals; it helps the environment as well. The chief causes of Amazonian deforestation and water pollution is cattle farming. To illustrate how bad a meat-based diet is for the environment, researchers Eshel and Martin said in a 2006 study that it was like “driving an SUV.”
But the effect of a meat-based diet is related to an even larger human problem: world hunger. According to environmental researcher Alan Durning, it takes almost five pounds of grain to produce just one pound of beef (it takes much more for pork, and a little less for chicken). This resource waste on the part of the West forces poverty upon other countries. Francis Lappé, author of Diet for a Small Planet, asks you to imagine eating a steak. “Then,” Lappé writes, “imagine the room filled with 45 to 50 people with empty bowls in front of them. For the ‘feed cost’ of your steak, each of their bowls could be filled with a full cup of cooked cereal grains.”
Animals have rights, and the argument that it ignores human issues is faulty. As moral humans, it is our responsibility to guard against injustice.
Now you go...
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