Category: ethics

2023 US Supreme Court Nonhuman Rights Victory!

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MAY 11, 2023
AMAZING WIN FOR PIGS IN US SUPREME COURT!!!
The High Court banned the sale of meat from pig gestation crates:  small, incredibly cruel crates where pigs who are among the most intelligent creatures cannot turn around or even scratch themselves or take care of their babies.  Pig factory farms everywhere must now dismantle crates in order to sell in California.  
This High Court ruling opened the doors for MA, FL, AZ, ME, MI, OR and RI that also have gestation crate bans.

This is a MASSIVE VICTORY for pigs and the Nonhuman Rights movement.  The US Supreme Court upheld a proposition passed overwhelmingly by California voters that bans the sale of meat from pig gestation crates.  This is a HUGE victory as California is the world’s fifth largest economy.  Pig factory farms everywhere must now dismantle crates in order to sell in California despite the fact that pork producers challenged Proposition 12 in court for five years.

The High Court upheld an animal welfare law approved by California’s voters, ruling that the state’s restrictions on the sale of pork that is produced by the cruel
confinement of breeding pigs do not violate the Constitution.  This ruling is an amazing Victory for Nonhuman Rights advocates as well as the rights of the states to set their own laws.  The National Pork Producers Council said the law would require farmers in Iowa (that sells most of its products to California) and North Carolina (that has a tremendous presence of pigs farms) to change how they raise and confine these intelligent, sentient nonhuman beings.

LET’S GOOOO!!!  LET’S NOT QUIT FIVE MINUTES BEFORE THE MIRACLE!!!

Recent Nonhuman Rights Legal Celebrations

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MAY 11, 2023
AMAZING WIN FOR PIGS IN US SUPREME COURT!!!
The High Court banned the sale of meat from pig gestation crates:  small, incredibly cruel crates where pigs who are among the most intelligent creatures cannot turn around or even scratch themselves or take care of their babies.  Pig factory farms everywhere must now dismantle crates in order to sell in California.  
This High Court ruling opened the doors for MA, FL, AZ, ME, MI, OR and RI that also have gestation crate bans.

This is a MASSIVE VICTORY for pigs and the Nonhuman Rights movement.  The US Supreme Court upheld a proposition passed overwhelmingly by California voters that bans the sale of meat from pig gestation crates.  This is a HUGE victory as California is the world’s fifth largest economy.  Pig factory farms everywhere must now dismantle crates in order to sell in California despite the fact that pork producers challenged Proposition 12 in court for five years.

The High Court upheld an animal welfare law approved by California’s voters, ruling that the state’s restrictions on the sale of pork that is produced by the cruel
confinement of breeding pigs do not violate the Constitution.  This ruling is an amazing Victory for Nonhuman Rights advocates as well as the rights of the states to set their own laws.  The National Pork Producers Council said the law would require farmers in Iowa (that sells most of its products to California) and North Carolina (that has a tremendous presence of pigs farms) to change how they raise and confine these intelligent, sentient nonhuman beings.

MAY 21, 2020
The Islamabad High Court of Pakistan affirmed the rights of nonhuman beings and ORDERED THE RELEASE of Kaavan (an Asian elephant held in solitary confinement at the Marghazar Zoo) to a sanctuary.
Chief Justice Athar Minallah stated that the global pandemic served as “an opportunity for humans to introspect and relate to the pain and distress suffered by other living beings” caused by the “arrogance” of human beings. Chief Justice Minallah stated that “zoos do not serve any purpose except to display their living inmates as exhibits to visitors.”
Chief Justice Minallah cited New York State Justice Alison Tuitt’s February 2020 decision in Happy the elephant’s case (on appeal by the Nonhuman Rights Project, counsel for Plaintiff Happy the elephant): “[Happy] is more than just a legal thing, or property. She is an intelligent, autonomous being who should be treated with respect and dignity, and who may be entitled to liberty.”
The Islamabad High Court is the second court outside the United States to cite Justice Tuitt’s February 2020 ruling, and the latest court to cite the New York Court of Appeals Judge Eugene Fahey’s rejection of chimpanzees’ legal “thinghood” in Nonhuman Rights Project’s chimpanzee rights cases of clients, Tommy, Kiko, Leo and Hercules.

Happy awaits her forever home.  Here is her story:  https://lnkd.in/eHKtHXRX

MARCH 21, 2018
Chimpanzees Hercules and Leo ACHIEVED FREEDOM with the support and legal prowess of their attorney, Nonhuman Rights Project Founder and President, Professor Steven M. Wise.
Hercules and Leo are celebrating their fifth year at Project Chimps sanctuary in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia thanks to Professor and Nonhuman Rights Project Founder and President Steven M. Wise.  “I’m very happy to see them leaving a research facility,” exclaimed NhRP President Steven M. Wise in 2018. “I wish every primate could.”
Hercules and Leo have adjusted well in their forever home. Hercules protects young Kivuli during group conflicts and loves giant stuffed animals. Leo enjoys playing with the younger males in his group and loves peanut butter.
I remain elated that Dr. Jane Goodall is still alive to celebrate this incredible Victory!

LET’S GOOOO!!!  LET’S NOT QUIT FIVE MINUTES BEFORE THE MIRACLE!!!

Our feelings v. Their suffering

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What about them? If we are simply acting as a voice for the voiceless, then why must we continually argue with each other?
Think about it. How can we have the audacity to compare human beings taking offense to words versus the constant suffering abuse, torture, pain, fear and terror that nonhuman beings must endure during their entire short lives until they experience their own violent deaths after witnessing the violent deaths of their loved ones?
This question begs two more questions.
 
First, what is the only species that kills for fun and sport?
“Of all the creatures, man is the most detestable. Of the entire brood, he’s the one that possesses malice. He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain. The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.” Mark Twain, American writer, 1835-1910
 
Second, how should humans treat other species?
Most cultures agree with a common theme of Goodness which implies Compassion, Empathy, Gentleness, Kindness, Peace and the Golden Rule…which supports Veganism; not Violence, Torture and Slaughter.
For example, Christians refer to the Bible. In Genesis 1:26, the Bible states that God gave humans “dominion over creatures.” Many Hebrew scholars believe the word “dominion” is a very poor translation of the original Hebrew word “v’yirdu” which actually meant “to rule over” as a wise king rules over his subjects with CARE and RESPECT. It implies a sense of RESPONSIBILITY and ENLIGHTENED STEWARDSHIP.

“Unlike the animal, God has given man the faculty of reason. Ethically they had arrived at the conclusion that man’s supremacy over lower animals meant not that the former should prey upon the latter, but that the higher should protect the lower, and that there should be mutual aid between the two as between man and man. They had also brought out the truth that man eats not for enjoyment but to live.” Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948

“We are all God’s creatures—that we pray to God for mercy and justice, while we continue to eat the flesh of animals that are slaughtered on our account, is not consistent.” Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1902-1991

“Animals, too, are God’s creatures…Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or hens live so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible.” Pope Benedict XVI, 1927-2022

“In my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. The more helpless the creature, the more it is entitled to protection by man from the cruelty of man.” Gandhi

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” Gandhi

“When I see a cow, it is not an animal to eat, it is a poem of pity for me and I worship it and I shall defend its worship against the whole world.” Gandhi

“If God wants us to breed into existence billions of animals to enslave, torture and slaughter them (mostly as babies) for sensory pleasure, then what in the world could the Devil possibly want? Gary Yourofsky, American Activist

A Great Way to Start 2020

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On Friday, January 3, 2020, a judge ruled that ethical veganism qualifies as a philosophical belief protected under UK law.

It’s nice to know the law is catching up to life.

In Genesis 1:26, the Bible states that God gave humans “dominion over creatures.” Many Hebrew scholars believe the word “dominion” is a very poor translation of the original Hebrew word “v’yirdu” which actually meant “to rule over” as a wise king rules over his subjects with CARE and RESPECT. It implied a sense of RESPONSIBILITY and ENLIGHTENED STEWARDSHIP.

Likewise, Gandhi professed, “Unlike the animal, God has given man the faculty of reason. Ethically they had arrived at the conclusion that man’s supremacy over lower animals meant not that the former should prey upon the latter, but that the higher should PROTECT the lower, and that there should be mutual aid between the two as between man and man. They had also brought out the truth that man eats not for enjoyment but to live.”

Mark Twain concurred. “Of all the creatures, man is the most detestable. Of the entire brood, he’s the one that possesses malice. He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain. The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.”

If God wants us to breed into existence billions of nonhuman beings to enslave, torture and slaughter them (mostly as babies) for sensory pleasure, then what in the world could the Devil possibly want?

If you study religion or philosophy, there exists a common theme of Goodness which implies Compassion, Empathy, Gentleness, Kindness, Peace and the Golden Rule…which supports Veganism; not Violence, Torture and Slaughter.