Sheep dressing, pig wrestling, chicken scrambling: Bullies are made, not born

Kathleen Stachowski    Other Nations

For weeks now, our local newspaper has been running a full-page ad for the PIGGEST. RAFFLE. EVER. It exhorts me to kick-off my summer “the right way, by winning the ultimate BBQ package.” A pink pig, arms akimbo, grins sardonically. If he’d just glance down the page some nine inches, he’d see a chart of his body sliced up into meat cuts. A little less to grin about, no? The grand prize is a Weber grill and one-half of a pig. Second place gets the other half.

Every time I see this ad I’m reminded of the human tendency to distance ourselves from the other animals with whom we share sentience. We make cartoons of them and require that they serve as willing purveyors of their own dead bodies

How now, cannulated cow?

 

European Pressphoto Agency image from Mail Online

Kathleen Stachowski   Other Nations

Think back to when you first read or heard about debeaking. Remember how shocked, horrified, and disgusted you were? You had to adjust your schema–the cognitive framework that helps you make intellectual sense of the human animal/nonhuman animal relationship–to accommodate this new and terrible information. “Now,” you might have thought, “I understand the scope of Homo sapiens’ exploitation of animals.”

But of course you didn’t.

Live From the Second World Conference on Bioethics and Animal Rights in Brazil

Elizabeth Bennett

DAY 1 Ola from the Second World Conference on Bioethics and Animal Rights.  First, I would like to say that I am very thankful that Pace Law School and the Center for Environmental Legal Studies provided me with the opportunity to attend this prestigious and world-renowned conference and for all of the conference organizers’ hard work and hospitality.  As the presentations I have attended thus far have been informative and thought-provoking for me, I will do my best to share my experience with you.

Upon arrival, a symphony was playing.  After introductions and honorariums, Professor David Cassuto of Pace Law School and Director of the Brazil-American Institute for Law and Environment (BAILE) spoke about current trends in environmental law and the animal world.  He discussed the intersection of animal and environmental law and how they often clash, despite the many common grounds upon which they merge.  He went on to discuss the legal framework for protecting animals, distinguishing between animal welfarists and animal rights activists, stating that animal welfarists wish for stronger laws, while animal rights activists believe that humans should not use animals at all.  He also pointed out that in the United States legal system, animals are property and the laws concerning animals regulate relationships between humans about animals.  He made an interesting comparison between the appropriateness of humans making laws on behalf of nonhuman animals and politicians enacting laws on our behalf without truly knowing us, what we desire, or how we would like to be protected.  This comparison comes as an interesting response to doubts about human ability and right to make laws about non-human animals when they do not completely understand what animals want or need.

Professor Cassuto also discussed whether animals can be considered “persons” under the law and how this would change the way we protect them.  This served as a great opening to the Conference, as many of the presentations that followed addressed these questions and dealt with similar issues.