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?
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?