A priest, a rabbi and a lawyer run into a pack of pittbulls. The dogs attack the two clerics but ignore the lawyer who asks why he's been spared a mauling. One of the dogs shrugs and says, "Professional courtesy."

Okay, that's a cheap shot at the lawyers. But attorneys have been currying favor with dogs and animals of all colors and stripes in earnest for almost 20 years. Animal law is one of the fastest growing areas in the legal profession. In the mid-1990s only two law schools offered courses focusing on animal law. Currently around 100 schools list classes specializing in it. The Animal Defense Legal Fund (ADLF) was relatively small 15 years ago, but now has chapters in at least 124 law schools and claims to have 100,000 members. Animal law actually can be traced back 4,000 years to Hammurabi's time when his Code set reasonable fees for livestock owners to pay animal health care providers; but it threw the book at those caregivers if the animal's condition worsened or it died.

Animal law embraces a wide range of legal discussions exploring the rights of animals on a philosophical level and draws up guidelines for adjudicating the rights of those who own and use animals. Overall, legal scholars and animal law experts are not grandstaning pettifoggers advocating for a pet whose inheritance of a fortune from its eccenctric deceased owner is being contested by surviving family members shut out of the will. Rather, lawyers who take on animal cases are practicing in the usual areas of contract, tort, criminal and constitutional law. Typical cases involve animal custody disputes in divorces and separations; veterinary malpractice; housing discrimination where 'no pet' policies exist; damages for wrongful death or injury to a companion animal; enforceable trusts for companion animals; criminal law comprising domestic violence and anti-cruelty laws.

Some advocacy groups, however, have been using legislation and litigation to press an agenda of animal rights that sometimes boarders on the extreme and unnecessary. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) works with and funds regional and local animal welfare organizations to get propositions such as California's Prop 2 (in 2008) and Missouri's Prop B (in 2010) on the general election ballots. In 2009, states passed 121 new animal rights laws, and 93 state initiatives were approved at the polls in 2008.

What altruistic local animal welfare proponents care about, however, does not necessarily mesh with what a HSUS/PETA-type organization has in mind. HSUS and PETA, say their more outspoken critiques, want to eradicate  animal agriculture and the ownership of animals for companionship, labor, food, sport and research. The head of the HSUS has noted that the animal rights movement was "essentially in a pre-regulation phase in dealing with animals reared for food." The group's goal is to extend the federal Animal Welfare Act to include farm animals. Currently, the Act's jurisdiction covers only the treatment of pets and lab and zoo animals.

While animal rights groups have made inroads toward that goal one piece of legislation at a time, the agriculture industry and the academic law community is starting to throw up roadblocks. The legal profession is floating the notion that societies ought to be "centering on human responsibility" rather than on regulation to protect animals, and that "may well be an appropriate reason to adopt [only] some of the less extreme animal protections sought by animal rights activists." (Law Professor Richard L. Cupp, Jr., Pepperdine Universtiy; San Diego Law Review, Vol. 46, 2009.

Bravo, for that line of thinking. But what are we to make of such antics as PETA's latest? And I'm not talking about  its ad campaigns featuring nudes with fruit and vegetables strategically shielding certain body parts.The PETA Vice President for Policy is calling for an animal-friendly adaptation of the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible which  was introduced in 1966 and updated earlier this year. He wants "speciesist' language removed, and the text to refer to animals as he or she instead of it. Will PETA sue to change the word of God if the Bible is not redacted to its liking?





 

Second In a Series

Animal welfare is a human responsibility that encompasses all aspects of animal well-being, including proper housing, management, disease prevention and treatment, responsible care, humane handling and, when necessary, humane euthanasia. Animal rights is a philosophical view that animals have rights (equity,independence and advantage) similar to or the same as those humans enjoy. Dogmatic animal rightists believe  humans do not have the right to use animals at all. For these purists the bottom line is a general ban on all use of animals by humans whether they are used for food, clothing, sport, labor or companionship.


Animal welfare groups stand for several traditional ideals that historically have defined the relationship between animals and humans. First and foremost, they seek to improve the treatment and well-being of animals, but they believe humans can interact with animals in entertainment, industry, sport, recreation and industry as long as the interaction includes provisions for the proper care and management for all the animals involved. At the same time animal welfare advocates support self-regulation of animal sports such as polo, rodeo, three-day eventing, FFA competions, horse racing, field trials and endurance riding. They also utilize scientific research and medical evidence to develop animal care and handling guidelines.

Animal rights proponents, on the other hand, have a harshly different picture of the 'animal kingdom' and occasionally countenance radical means to bring their view into focus. They initiate, draft and support laws and regulations that would prohibit rodeos, horse racing, circuses, hunting, life-saving medical research using animals, raising livestock for food, petting zoos, marine parks, breeding purebred pets and any use of animals for industry and entertainment. Violence, misinformation and publicity stunts have been justified in achieving their ends, and they consider such activities as valid use of funds donated to their tax-exempt organizations. Some members of these groups have indicated they are comfortable with arson, vandalism and assualt to further the cause of animal rights. Groups such as the Animal Liberation Front have been classified as terrorists by the FBI.

Next up in this series: Animal law is one of the fastest growing areas in the legal profession.


 

FIrst in a Series:
You're not going to give your five-year-old the car keys and ask him to pick up his younger sister from daycare. So why would you cozy up to animal rights groups which ultimately want you to let your five-year-old Lab out to pee, and then have him sashay off into a world where there is no animal ownership? Because maybe you're not aware that animal rights activists often pose as animal welfare advocates? But have a completely different agenda.

 
In a series of posts starting here, we'll take a look at the differences between animal rights and animal welfare. The philosophical postions are starkly distinct. Animal rights supporters, embodied by such organizations as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), maintain that humans and animals are virtually equal and should have the same rights. They renounce the use of animals for the benefit of humans whether it is for food, labor, sport, clothing, research and companionship.

Supporters of animal welfare, on the other hand, represented by groups like the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) endorse the responsible used of animals to satisfy certain human needs. They work to ensure animals' basic needs are fulfilled in terms of food, shelter and health; and that animals experience no unnecessary suffering in their service to humans.  Animal welfare champions further argue that giving equal rights to animals will not provide for their well being.

As interest in the humane treatment of animals grows, media coverage tends to lump animal lovers and animal rights activists together. "The popularity of the phrase animal rights activists rather than something like animal welfare activists  reflects an increasing focus on animals as potential bearers of rights rather than on humans as bearers of responsibility for the welfare of animals they control," writes Richard L. Cupp, Jr., of the Pepperdine University School of Law. In the introduction to his paper Moving Beyond Animal Rights: A Legal Contractualist Critique published in May 2009, Cupp noted that legal reforms regarding animals are "better suited to social contract ideals than to the creation of new rights." He suggests a formal code of rights would be "harmful to both humans and, ultimately, to animals."

Over several installments, we'll examine the entire landscape of the animal rights/animal welfare discussion: the rapidly growing field of animal law how activists use ballot initiatives to move their not-so-transparent agendas forward, among other issues.