Letters to the Editor: The elephants and whales blazing the trail for animal legal rights
To the editor: The issue of extending basic rights to other animal species is undeniably a matter of societal interest and a legal and moral imperative, including the 2018 lawsuit that sought personhood rights for Happy, an Asian elephant in captivity at the Bronx Zoo.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, paved the way for these cases in 2011, when it filed the first-ever lawsuit seeking constitutional rights for animals. Tilikum vs. SeaWorld alleged that SeaWorld’s imprisonment of five wild-caught orcas violated the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery without limitation to any particular class of victim.
While that suit and Happy’s did not succeed, they opened the door for the kinds of lawsuits that will one day grant animals the rights that they deserve. The question being asked now is, “Why shouldn’t animals have rights?”
Jeffrey S. Kerr, Washington
The writer is chief legal officer at PETA Foundation.
..
To the editor: I grew up with no particular affinity to animals. I never had a pet. When I bought my daughter a bunny, I was 56 years old.
I read that rabbits typically live up to six years, but if you interact with them they live 10-12 years. Ours lived 11. He was easy to house train and had the run of our home.
This 3 1/2-pound creature was excited to see us when we got home. He played little games with us. He loved getting pet and collapsed into what we called a “bunny pancake” the longer we stroked him.
The effect was gradual, but my discovery that all animals are capable of joy, affection and suffering led to my decision to stop eating meat. And knowing how cruel the meat and dairy industry is, I consider eating meat tantamount to eating suffering. I won’t do it.
We don’t have to declare animals human in order to treat them with respect and care. Look at how we treat other humans.
Eileen Flaxman, Claremont
..
To the editor: Happy the Asian elephant, cruelly confined since 1977, is likely not so happy.
What gives humans the right to imprison sentient beings like Happy for our pleasure and entertainment, thereby forcing them to “do time” for crimes they never committed?
It has long been known that the way children treat or mistreat animals can predict how they will treat or mistreat other humans over a lifetime. We should not be surprised. Our ongoing cruelty to animals is a sad but clear reflection on man’s inhumanity to both man and animal.
Linda Nicholes, Huntington Beach
