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Animal Rights Advocates Equate Animals with Man to Extinguish Mankind
Nov 05, 2024 / Written by: Gary Isbell
Animal rights activists never stop trying to establish the notion of equality among men and animals. To them, animals must be considered as persons, even though they do not have the rational and cognizant faculties of humans. They are instinct-driven and thus do not have the light of reason from which rights are derived.
One way around the dilemma of how animals should be treated is by creating a category called “non-human persons.” By turning animals into quasi-persons, activists hope to create some kind of legal rights for them out of thin air.
One such case is that of a group of elephants. Activists have presented oral arguments before the Colorado Supreme Court, pitting the NonHuman Rights Project against the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, which is home to elephants named Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou and Jambo.
The animal rights group argues that intelligent and social animals deserve the legal right to challenge their captivity, as would prisoners challenging their detention. The animals would be released to a sanctuary—which is only a bigger restricted place of detention for animals.
The NonHuman Rights Project claims that Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo are “autonomous and extraordinarily cognitively complex beings languishing in a wholly unnatural environment, unable to flourish and have their complex physical and psychological needs met.”1
Exactly how the elephants communicated their plight to the NonHuman Rights Project members is still unclear. There is no evidence of abuse by zoo keepers. The animals are protected from danger, provided with food and receive attention from the public. They are certain to be safer than if they were left to the forces of nature in the wild.
This new case is similar to the case of Happy the Elephant at the Bronx Zoo in New York. Former Colorado attorney general John Suthers, who represented the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, cited a ruling where the judges said the right to seek freedom from detention is unique to humans because humans can be held responsible under the law; animals cannot.
Indeed, no one has ever explained how animals will know and exercise their new found rights, stay within the law and respect the rights of others. Animals live in ecosystems where species live off the lives of others without regard for their “right to life.” Thus, only humanity would be held accountable for the treatment of other animals since all other animals are governed by violent instincts.
A high-profile favorable case involving elephants could then be used to question the treatment of any animal, whether in a zoo, a pet or farmed for food. Conceivably, this protection could include insects, rodents, worms and maybe bacteria since they also have life. If animal rights enthusiasts achieve their goals, humans will be reduced to pacifist gatherers in a global ecosystem.
Indeed, many animal rights activists harbor a special hatred toward humanity for its exalted place in creation. Some go so far as to desire human extinction as a kind of reparation for all past domination and a means to “restore” the earth’s natural ecosystem.
The National Animal Interest Alliance, for example, lists hundreds of quotes revealing this hatred toward humanity and a desire for human extinction. 2 Here are a few examples.
- “If you haven’t given voluntary human extinction much thought before, the idea of a world with no people in it may seem strange. But, if you give it a chance, I think you might agree that the extinction of Homo Sapiens would mean survival for millions, if not billions, of Earth-dwelling species ... Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental.” (Les U. Knight, a pseudonym, “Voluntary Human Extinction,” Wild Earth, Vol. 1, No. 2, Summer 1991, p. 72).
- “The life of an ant and that of my child should be granted equal consideration.” (Michael W. Fox, Scientific Director and former Vice President, The Humane Society of the United States, The Inhumane Society, New York, 1990).
- “Deep down, I truly hope that oppression, torture and murder return to each uncaring human tenfold! I hope that fathers accidentally shoot their sons on hunting excursions, while carnivores suffer heart attacks that kill them slowly.” (Gary Yourofsky, PeTA Humane Education Lecturer, quoted in the University of Southern Indiana Student Newspaper, The Shield, January 24, 2008).
Thus, one senses that the focus of this hatred against man is not about rights or the abuse of rights toward animals. The target is much higher.
The radical animal rights activists resent the position of mankind in creation. Humanity’s rationality and ordering abilities put man in a position of governance and stewardship. The earth and all living creatures benefit from human existence and progress when men practice virtue.
The real target of these radical activists is their hatred of inequality and natural hierarchy; therefore, God’s plan for creation and man’s place as the highest creature in the material universe.
So, it was in the beginning. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” [Gen 1:26–28].
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