“I don’t see a difference between a chimpanzee and my 4 1/2-year-old son,” says Steven Wise, a law professor and proponent of a dangerous school of thought that would put “animal rights” on a par with human rights. Wise’s profile today in The Washington Post follows an April Wall Street Journal report on the campaign to give “chimpanzees legal standing” — and “to ask courts to protect their interests.”
Why should restaurants and food producers care? From there, it’s not far to legal protection for cattle, poultry, and pork, including the legal “right” not to be eaten. It is impossible for meat retailers and producers to ever satisfy animal rights groups, because they hold the irrational view that livestock has human rights, and decry restaurants for serving “food with a face.”
Nothing will satisfy them, short of a total ban on meat consumption. Writes PETA’s Bruce Friedrich: “The shift in national debate really begs the question, ‘Where do we get off eating these feeling beings in the first place?’ Once corporations begin treating animals better, everyone is forced to consider that animals are not automatons or widgets, that they have interests, needs, desires, and more. As this consciousness grows, the vegan world we all want draws nearer.”
