Animal Rights fanatics

(Hat tip: Captain's Quarters.)

The Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works held a hearing on October 26 of this year. One of the witnesses testifying was Jerry Vlasak, MD. His testimony gives fuel to the fires of those who believe the animal rights movement is an anti-human being movement.

It seems the transcripts of the testimony are rather hard to find. Blogger Brian O'Conner has archived copies of them in two parts: one dealing with bureaucratic issues, and the second deling more with the tactics and beliefs of the animal rigts movement.

O'Conner analyzes comments from the second portion, including this:

Dr. Vlasak. Non-human lives, non-human animal lives, are as precious as animal lives. At one time, racism and sexism and homophobism were prominent in our society. Today speciesism is prominent in our society. It is just as wrong as racism. [O'Conner's emphasis . . . ed] Senator Inhofe. So you do put them in the same category, the animals of non-human and human lives? Is that correct? Dr. Vlasak. They are morally equal.

Dr. Vlasak ... is merely affirming the underlying premise of the entire Animal Rights industry: that the life of an animal and that of a human are equally valuable, and that to discriminate on the basis of differences in species (i.e. to privilege "human persons" over "non-human persons" . . .) is as immoral and as unethical as to discriminate on the basis of race, age or sex.

(...Continued in full post...)

Senator Inhofe. One of the statements you made at the animal rights convention when you were defending assassinating people, murdering people, you said, let me put it up here to make sure I’m not misquoting you, “I don’t think you’d have to kill, assassinate too many. I think for five lives, ten lives, fifteen human lives, we could save a million, two million, or ten million non-human lives.’’ You’re advocating the murder of individuals, isn’t that correct? Dr. Vlasak. I made that statement, and I stand by that statement. That statement is made in the context that the struggle for animal liberation is no different than struggles for liberation elsewhere, whether the struggle for liberation in South Africa against the apartheid regime, whether the liberation against the communists, whether it was the liberation struggles in Algeria, Viet Nam or Iraq today, liberation struggles occasionally or usually, I should say, usually end up in violence. There is plenty of violence being used on the other side of the equation. These animals are being terrorized, murdered and killed by the millions every day. The animal rights movement has been notoriously non-violent up to this point.

Senator Inhofe. And so you call for the murders of researchers and human life? Dr. Vlasak. I said in that statement and I meant in that statement that people who are hurting animals and who will not stop when told to stop, one option would be to stop them using any means necessary and that was the context in which that statement was made. Senator Inhofe. Including murdering them? Dr. Vlasak. I said that would be a morally justifiable solution to the problem.

After a day of testimony, Senator Inhofe concludes there's no way to compromise with the animal rights movement. When one side values human life above animal life, and the other is perfectly willing to sacrifice N human lives in order to save at least N+1 animal lives, there's no middle ground.

Senator Inhofe is perfectly correct. The difference between his premise — that a human life is of greater worth than an animal life — and that of Dr. Vlasak — that the life of a human and an animal are equally valuable — precludes using the normal tools of negotiation and compromise to find common ground. I hope Senator Inhofe and Senator Lautenberg, particularly, understand that the premise Dr. Vlasak operates under is the premise underlying AR as a whole. Dr. Vlasak is simply much more candid than his more cautious brethren, who are reluctant to express themselves as clearly as Dr. Vlasak because they know it would mean the death of their movement.

Note: We need to distinguish between those who are legitimately concerned for animal welfare and want to prevent animal suffering, and the animal rights activist movement. You can love your pet and want to prevent animal suffering, without believing that humans are expendable in that pursuit.