AR-News: (US MN) Animal rights and the myth of “humane” treatment

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

By Tom Regan, Guest Columnist 


o outsiders, animal rights advocates look to be a strange lot. We don’t eat 
meat, avoid cosmetics tested on animals and boycott the Ringling Brothers 
Circus. Drape ourselves in fur? Forget it. Animal rights advocates don’t even wear 
leather or wool. 
 
Anthony Brandl, daily

Many people view advocates as certifiable, grade-A, top-of-the-class 
nutcases. Reduced to the essentials, however, what we believe is just common sense. 
We believe the animals killed for food, trapped for fur, used in laboratories 
or trained to jump through hoops are unique somebodies — not generic 
somethings. What happens to them matters to them. What happens to them makes a 
difference to the quality and duration of their lives. 
In these respects, animal rights advocates believe humans and these animals 
are the same — equal. And so it is that all advocates share a common moral 
outlook: We should not do to them what we would not have done to us. Not eat them. 
Not wear them. Not experiment on them. Not train them to jump through hoops. “
Not larger cages,” we say, “empty cages.” 
“Humane treatment” 
Comparatively speaking, few people are animal rights advocates. Why? Part of 
the answer concerns our disparate beliefs about how often animals are treated 
badly. Animal rights advocates believe this is a tragedy of incalculable 
proportions. Nonadvocates believe mistreatment occurs hardly at all. 
That nonadvocates think this way seems eminently reasonable. After all, we 
have laws governing how animals may be treated and a cadre of government 
inspectors who make sure these laws are obeyed. 
In the language of our most important federal legislation — the Animal 
Welfare Act — animals must receive “humane care and treatment.” In other words, 
animals must be treated with sympathy, kindness, mercy and compassion — the very 
meaning of the word “humane.” It says so in any standard dictionary. 
For fiscal year 2001, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service 
conducted 12,000 inspections. Of that total, only 140 sites were reported for possible 
violations because of improper handling of animals. That works out to a 
compliance rate of almost 99 percent. 
Inspections and myth 
Tragically, the public’s trust in the adequacy of government inspections is 
misplaced. What inspection service inspectors count as “humane” undermines the 
inspections before they are conducted. 
ANIMAL RIGHTS 
Speaker: Tom Regan Emeritus professor of philosophy, North Carolina State 
University 
When: 5 p.m. Tuesday 
Where: room 100 Smith Hall 

Cats, dogs, nonhuman primates and other animals are drowned, suffocated and 
starved to death. They are burned, subjected to radiation and used as “guinea 
pigs” in military research. Their eyes are surgically removed and their hearing 
is destroyed. They have their limbs severed and organs crushed. Invasive 
means are used to give them heart attacks, ulcers and seizures. They are deprived 
of sleep, subjected to electric shock and exposed to extremes of heat and 
cold. 
It only gets worse 



full story:

http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2004/04/05/9054 
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