When you hear the term “animal rights,” what does that conjure up in your mind?  Do you envision dogs casting votes beside you in the voting booth or sitting next to you at Panera sipping a beverage?  Is it limited to respecting that animals can feel pain and suffering and we as humans are responsible for not inflicting pain and suffering on them?  Is it somewhere in between?

Does this mean we should not eat animal flesh of any kind?  But there are people who advocate that plants feel pain, too.  If this gets carried to extremes, we’ll be reduced to eating sterile dirt, and even that may be disallowed, because I believe there are people who advocate that rocks feel pain also.  These arguments completely ignore the food chain of survival below the human level.  For those arguing game animals should not be hunted or euthanized, they are not considering hunting is considered a conservation practice which helps maintain a healthy balance in nature.  It reduces the encroachment of game animals in search of food on our suburban back yards.  In times of good weather, animals reproduce rapidly.  When drought sets in, the large number of animals cannot find food and becomes sickly, endangering the entire population. Game hunting not only adds to food supply but maintains a healthy balance in nature to prevent disease among an animal population.

How much rational thought are animals capable of engaging in? Our cats, left to their own devices, would trap an eat bugs, birds, lizards, rodents, and other small creatures.  They nibble grass to settle their tummies, but they don’t eat it exclusively.  Many animals consume a vegetarian or vegan diet.  Many do not.  Humans can generally consume a variety of foods from either the animal or plant kingdom.  Nutrition experts differ widely on what the healthiest diet consists of, and I’m not ready to concede that any of them are correct.

This is a philosophical question which gained momentum in the 1970s, beginning at Oxford with post-graduate philosophy students.  Unfortunately, it’s gaining ground via legal means (as so many topics are through the engagement of activist judges in the US and via similar means around the world). My attention is drawn to it from an odd venue — my light-hearted story of a polar bear wanting to live as a human in human society has the potential to raise these questions with potential readers taking my story beyond the context I intended for it. (That’s what happens when you release a story into the wild — people can read all kinds of hidden meaning into things).

What do you think about animal rights?  I believe human choices need to be made in ways that acknowledge animals feel pain and can suffer enormously, and our actions with them need to be considered and humane.  I don’t believe they should be voting (for example) with a human claiming to be acting as their proxy (I’m trying to imagine the political discussions that would ensue with our cats). But what are the factors that need to be considered?  Where does one draw the line?  Is that even a factor to consider for my polar bear adventure story?