Letters to the Editor
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Animal Criteria for Life
Can I just address the "usefulness" issue that seems to rear its head pretty regularly when the topic of animals comes up? For instance Laurel talks about the usefulness of racehorses, as well as a variety of other animals - cows, etc. - and that if we didn't breed them for our own purposes, they would become extinct or lead a difficult life...the feral chihuahua would anyway from what I gather.
It's just a very good thing that we don't apply this to ourselves, don't you think? The usefulness issue, that is. I know far too many people that wouldn't make the grade and the thought of human slaughter houses does not appeal to me at all!
I just think we humans are a such an arrogant lot. If it weren't for us, well! Those pesky animals sure are lucky! Geez, if not for us where would all those battery hens hang out all day but on their luxurious 8x10 rectangle, debeaked, detoed (ouch), unable to expand her wings. Lucky girl! And cows! All the gloriously happy cows! With their rupturing udders, their endless pregnancies, their calves ripped away from them, standing on lots of their own excrement, bursting with hormones, antibiotics and pride at the mere thought of being able to be of such use to the noblest of animals.
How about animals having a right to be? Just be? Without being forced into some ridiculous money making venture, entertainment venue, or food processing plant? If certain animals go extinct because we no longer cage them, torture them, neglect them, well, I would think that wouldn't be such a bad thing.