Opinion Poll on Animal Rights
* In response to “Creatures Great and--Equal?,” Dec 25:
There is a paradox at the heart of the animal rights movement, which so far has not received the attention it deserves.
Animals may indeed have consciousness and feelings, but only human beings are capable of abandoning their own interests in the name of an abstract idea. Ask a spider if a fly has equal rights, or a cat if it is willing to stop chasing mice out of altruism. Squeamish lions, sharks and polar bears are hardly likely to abandon their position at the top of the food chain in order to become vegetarians. Only people make such essentially irrational decisions as these.
By the very act of asserting that animals are our equals, animal rights activists are demonstrating that capacity for moral reasoning and self-transcendence that human beings alone possess. On the other hand, those who see other species only as food or raw material can justifiably be accused of abandoning their human capacity for empathy and behaving like animals.
ROBIN WALLACE
Ontario
* The moronic statements of persons such as Ingrid Newkirk (chairwoman of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) should not go unchallenged. She is quoted as saying that animals “are not cheap burglar alarms or living toys.” The partnership between humans and dogs is many thousands of years old and has benefited both.
The abduction of Polly Klaas, for example, would never have happened had there been a family dog of some size and a protective temperament in the house with those children.
BONNIE DILLER
Venice
* On Nov. 26 I was on Rodeo Drive when a group of demonstrating animal activists attacked me with a venom: unprintable four-letter words, etc. What was I guilty of? A black leather skirt, a black leather Western jacket with fringe, beads and some bird feathers.
We American women have to look at the agenda of these lunatics. They obviously plan to eliminate all animal use. Where is my freedom to choose what to wear and what to eat?
KINGA RYMSKY
Maywood
