Leon Kass has stepped down as chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics. On one level, I am happy for Kass. For four years he has broiled in the pressure cooker of Washington politics, subjected to vituperation and vicious calumny from the bioethics and science establishments for his heterodox (to them) defense of the intrinsic dignity and importance of human Read More ›
The animal-rights/liberation movement (ARL) will never win an award for truth in advertising. If the facts serve their cause, yes, they will tell the truth. But if a half-truth or even an outright lie better suits their purposes – well, what does honesty matter when the cause of ending human hegemony over animals is so important and just? Perhaps the Read More ›
The animal-rights/liberation movement is living high on the hog these days. In the last election, for example, activists induced Florida voters to grant gestating sows a state constitutional right to be kept in a space large enough to turn around in. As a consequence, the two pig farms in the state that had used gestation crates to confine pregnant pigs Read More ›
Original article Matthew Scully, a 43-year-old Republican insider, a one-time special assistant to the most powerful man on Earth, recently left his White House job to defend farm animals mostly chickens, cows and pigs. The main platform for this defense is laid out in his first book, “Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call Read More ›
AMERICANS LOVE ANIMALS. We coo over and coddle our cats and dogs as if they were children. We paste “Save the Whales” bumper stickers on our cars. We groan in empathetic sadness if a squirrel darts into the road in front of a car. We flock to national parks to catch fleeting glimpses of bears, elk, and antelope. We anthropomorphize Read More ›
When many people think of “animal rights,” they may picture trendy celebrities posing in nude photographs to combat the fur industry. Or perhaps, they will roll their eyes and smile when they hear that the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) reported the California Milk Advisory Board to the FCC for false advertising because its television ads claim Read More ›
SOMETHING DISTURBING is happening in the Florida elections this fall. No, not the chance that Janet Reno will be the Democratic candidate for governor. A state initiative has qualified for the ballot letting voters decide whether to grant constitutional rights to pregnant pigs. On the surface, the issue is one of animal husbandry. In the interest of industrial efficiency, and Read More ›