Uncaged: Legal Rights For Animals by Brenda Shoss To subscribe to Kinship Circle Letters for Animals, email: subscribe@kinshipcircle.org Overwork, mutilate or kill an animal in California and you face a year in prison and a $20,000 fine. In Oregon aggravated animal abuse is a Class C felony and Missouri's repeat offenders rate a Class D felony. Yet in court an animal is only worth his or her market value. The law views nonhuman beings as property. "Pain and suffering" allude to the owner's emotional distress, not the animal's. And in what law professor and author Gary L. Francione refers to as our "moral schizophrenia about nonhumans," society feels no regret over laws to exonerate proprietors for the literal torture of animals for flesh, fur, entertainment, or research potential. If you slit a cat's throat, you are a criminal. Dismember a conscious cow or pig, you are an animal husbandry practitioner. State penal codes pardon animal abuse for the purpose of livestock transport, confinement and slaughter, rodeo and similar exhibitions, fishing, hunting and trapping, wildlife management, and scientific or agricultural research. The federal Animal Welfare Act excuses "necessary" animal suffering and lets owners gauge acceptable pain levels. Societal ambivalence toward animals is a perennial reflex. For centuries, cultural, religious and economic mores have assigned humans dominion over nonhumans. To endorse beliefs that grant humans superiority justifies the use/abuse of so-called lesser beings. From this perspective, Francione concludes, nonhuman animals are merely a means to our ends. Many argue that animals are defective: They can't talk, drive cars or vote. But do they have the right to exist in their natural environment and express behaviors that matter to them? Do we withhold legal privileges simply because they don't resemble us? Speciesism, British psychologist Richard Ryder's phrase to describe how nonhumans are denied recognition in the ethical culture, is a discriminatory benchmark similar to race, religion, gender, sexual preference or age. As a concept, legal rights for animals inhabits the dusty shelves of philosophical speculation. Until judicial and societal paradigms delete the notion of nonhumans as "things," there can be no meaningful reform for animals. Owners will provide only enough care to sustain the function of their animals. For example, the American Heart Association can insert glass fragments into dogs' hearts and drill metal shafts into the skulls of newborn pigs--and claim suitable treatment. From the vivisector's angle, any degree of pain is warranted as long as animals serve research. But why did the AHA bypass findings from human heart patients in favor of tests shown to produce irrelevant results? With data to validate that animals experience emotion and logic, why do animal studies still receive more funding than humane research alternatives? Most people simply accept cultural protocol. Susan Finsen, California State University Department of Philosophy Chair and co-founder of Californians for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, believes "that it is far-fetched to suppose that a society which cannot even grasp the moral seriousness of animal rights is likely to be ready to give legal person-hood to animals." Moreover, the legal system reflects social sentiment and thus cannot initiate a fundamental shift in ethics. Laws to give caged hens or crated calves more living space "fail completely to recognize that animals have any non-tradable interests," Francione says. "There is no empirical evidence that such laws lead to anything more than the irony of reassuring society that animals we exploit are really treated well after all, and there is no need for further moral concern." An attitude change is more likely to begin with everyday vocabulary. Referring to an animal as "it" rather than "he" or "she" solidifies the perception of animals as things. "We can neglect, mistreat, abandon, exploit, and destroy them because it is our right to do so as owners of the Œproperty,'" says Elliot M. Katz DVM, president of In Defense of Animals (IDA). "The language of ownership has long played a vital role in movements seeking social change. Abolitionists, suffragists, and child advocates have used language to end oppression of people as property." IDA's "They Are Not Our Property, We Are Not Their Owners" campaign encourages individuals, humane societies, media and government authorities to choose "guardian" or "caretaker" over "owner" in codified and daily language. To date, officials in Boulder, CO., North and West Hollywood, CA., Berkeley, CA., Sherwood, AR., and Rhode Island state have enacted legislation to acknowledge the concept of guardianship. To further establish legal status for all animals, the Great Ape Legal Project (GAP) seeks the rights to life, liberty and immunity from torture for nonhuman great apes--our closest biological kin. They are like us, but not identical. As long as animals are caught in the thicket of human apathy and violence, they deserve the primary protections that humans cherish. WHAT YOU CAN DO: 1. To get involved in IDA's They Are Not Our Property, We Are Not Their Owners nationwide campaign, email: laurie@idausa.org or call 415-388-9641 for information. 2. Contact the Animal Legal Defense Fund, a coalition of attorneys dedicated to justice for animals, for assistance in specific animal abuse cases, an Attorney Referral Network, and to learn how you can help influence the U.S. legal system. http://www.aldf.org 707-769-7771 email: info@aldf.org 3. To access AnimalLaw.com for animal-related legal information, from pending legislation through relevant case law digests, email the webmaster at MKramer@AnimalLaw.com or write: Animal Law National Anti-Vivisection Society 53 W Jackson Blvd. Suite 1552 Chicago, IL 60604 1-800-888-6287