Historic Move Towards Animal Rights In Spain

In an historic move Spain has become the first country to grant rights to an animal:

In what is thought to be the first time a national legislature has granted such rights to animals, the Spanish parliament’s environmental committee voted to approve resolutions committing the country to the Great Apes Project, designed by scientists and philosophers who say that humans’ closest biological relatives also deserve rights.

- Times Online

While this is an extremely important move towards greater debate and understanding of the issues around human exploitation of animals, unfortunately the Great Ape Project is still based upon the speciesist attitude that rights are dependant upon the specific species biological closeness to humans. The Great Ape Project disregards the true principle of animal rights; the notion that all species should be granted moral equality and be liberated from exploitation and suffering.

Gandhi's Birthday and World Farm Animals Day

Today is Mohandas Gandhi's Birthday. A man who based his life on the principles of non-violence and living compassionately. If Gandhi were alive today I'm sure that he would view the current plight of millions of animals imprisoned and then killed in industrialised farms as absolutely abhorrent. So the fact that on his birthday many also mark World Farm Animals Day would, I'm sure, have pleased him if he were here to see it. In Gandhi's own time there were few in the west who shared his views about the immoral abuse of other species, yet today the issues are in the mainstream and more and more people are taking a stand for compassion and respect for life and becoming vegan. However, there is also a worrying trend of welfarism, which argues that as long as the animal was treated well it is acceptable to take its life. This still fails to see other species as independent beings, we exploit the weakest on the planet rather than showing our moral standards and turning away from cruelty. As the saying goes might does not make right. If you are one of those people who stands on the fence please take the step towards a future that does not kill unnecessarily, take that step on to the road towards compassion and discover a healthier, more compassionate and less environmentally damaging future.

World Farm Animals Day 2007