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FIRING LINE: Animals have rights In his column, Animal rights cause human suffering (July 24), Mr. Hartzler misunderstands the term "animal rights." Non-human animals do not and should not have the same rights as humans. They have no need for voting, and therefore should have no right to do so. But they do have a need to live free from unnecessary pain, and therefore have a right to life. Should we, as Mr. Hartzler suggests, deny animals their right to live simply because their intellectual capacity is not the same as ours? The question seems easy when we compare a roach to a human. But it's not so simple when dogs, cows or our primate cousins are involved. If we make decisions on rights to life based on intelligence, then infants and mentally handicapped people should not have the same rights as an adult human animal. Mr. Hartzler says animal rights activists "have no compassion for the suffering of their fellow human beings." But animal rights activists work on human rights issues, as well as animal issues. Moreover, animal and human issues are connected. Take factory farming. Factory farming kills 10 billion animals each year. But it is also the single largest polluter of our land, air and water (pollution that disproportionately affects poor, black and hispanic areas). Working in a slaughterhouse is ranked the most dangerous job in the market. Eating animal products causes heart disease (the number one killer in America today) and cancer. These are all very human problems. Kamber Sherrod |