Those who champion animals' right to live should not forget the rights of cattle and poultry
By Shimon Glick | Haaretz, 4.5.2000
The case in which the IDF held back the promotion of doctors who refused to take part in operating on dogs, as part of a resuscitation course, has focused public attention on the question of the status of animals in our society and how they should properly be treated. Even according to those who refused to take part in the operation, the issue was not causing suffering to the dogs at all: the dogs were anesthetized for the exercise, and at the end of the operation they were put down without waking up. This is not a question of animal suffering at all, but of an entirely new "right": the right of an animal to live. And it is no coincidence that the Israeli organization for animal rights chose the name "Let the Animals Live".
Concern to prevent animal suffering is relatively new in the Western world, although it has existed in Judaism for thousands of years. But even after awareness of it developed in the West, the emphasis was placed only on preventing unnecessary suffering or distress to animals. With the flowering of the civil rights movements, however, the struggle for animals took on a new color, one that also chose to use the popular concept of "rights". Among the rights granted to animals, the right "to live" was slipped in as well. This is an interesting phenomenon, because at the same time the concept of the "sanctity" of human life has weakened, and the movements in favor of euthanasia for human beings have grown stronger.
Granting animals a right to life is a fundamentally mistaken approach. People with a developed moral sense must be sensitive to the suffering of animals. But even if we choose to express these feelings in terms of rights instead of duties, the right to life cannot be among the rights granted to animals.
Let us think rationally. This right, if it really exists, belongs to all mammals (and perhaps to birds too), because of their ability to suffer and to visibly express their reaction to their suffering. If we grant a dog or a cat the right to live, there is no reason to deny it to any other mammal. And if we are consistent, we must also take practical steps to prevent cats from hunting mice and wolves from hunting deer. The question also arises: who granted the right to kill cats and dogs in the facilities of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals? Is only killing for medical purposes forbidden?
Let us continue the thought experiment a little further. Why do cattle and sheep not have a right to live? What right do we have to slaughter them in order to eat a hamburger? There is no health reason that requires eating meat. And if animals really do have a right to live, we must allow cows that have stopped giving their quota of milk to survive until the end of their natural lifespan, as is customary in India, and the same goes for sheep and goats.
In what way is the importance of their lives less than that of a dog's life?
And an even sharper question: what do we feed our dogs? Meat. And who allowed us to kill a cow or a horse to satisfy our dog's appetite for meat? And if animals really do have the right to live, why do they not also have the elementary natural right to reproduce and mate? Who authorized us to neuter cats or dogs and deny them basic pleasures common to every mammal? Did the pets agree to the operation? Did we ask whether the animals want the operation, the pain, and the decline in sexual function and fertility?
And if we have decided to grant animals rights like those of human beings, who authorized us to treat them as property: to buy, sell, domesticate and train dogs, all purely for our own enjoyment? If animals have rights, let us be consistent and give them the minimum we want for ourselves.
When high school students in the US were presented with the moral dilemma "Whom would you save from drowning, if you could save only one of them: your dog or a stranger?", most of them chose the dog. I carried out an identical study among medical students in Israel. There was no majority for the dog, but the results were still astonishing: 10% of respondents preferred the dog, and 17% could not decide between the dog and the person.
I propose that we stop the dangerous drift that blurs the difference between human life and a dog's life. Preventing unnecessary suffering to animals: absolutely yes. But granting sanctity of life to a dog: certainly not. The dog was not created in the image of God.
The author is a professor of internal medicine and holds a chair at the Moshe Prywes Center for Medical Education.