Wednesday, January 28, 2004

 

The 28th Amendment

I was all set to write a rare pro-PETA post about how funny their Chris P. Carrot/Colonel Corn presidential ticket is. Really, I was. But then I looked at their platform. I can stand the usual litany of PETA initiatives (some of which are quite worthwhile; the government shouldn't be subsidizing farmers of any kind (though I wonder what PETA thinks of vegetable farm subsidies. Nevermind.)), but Carrot's first plank was a proposed constitutional amendment that reads:

The United States shall, at all levels of government and in the public sphere, seek to provide for the prevention of cruelty to animals whenever associated with human activities and commerce. According to the amendment, in terms of protection from harm and exploitation, all mammals, birds, and fish will, henceforth, be defined as "persons" in the eyes of the law. Section 2 gives Congress the power to enforce this article through appropriate legislation.
(Emphasis mine.)

I understand PETA's desire for an amendment. Without one, there is little (though, as I mentioned below, some) legal support for identifying animals as people. If PETA wants to achieve that, amendment is almost certainly necessary.

But the amendment poses a conundrum. In general, constitutional amendment should be made for the benefit of the citizens of the United States. Since animals clearly don't qualify as such, the amendment seems unnecessary, since it's main beneficiaries are non-human. (I grant that it would benefit those who desperately want the eradication of all animal exploitation, but the actual benefit to them is rather small; they just get what they want.) But with the amendment, the animals become "human" in the eyes of the law, and thus the amendment is benefiting a huge percentage of the US population. So where should the benefit measurement occur?

PETA would argue post-amendment. I would, too. For example, before the 13th amendment was passed, blacks in the US weren't full people. It took the 14th amendment to change their 3/5 status. So I think the objection raised in the previous paragraph is largely irrelevant. It is more important to consider the necessity of an amendment, rather than it's benefit in general.

But once again we have a problem. In PETA's view, the fact that animals aren't recognized as people in the eyes of the law is a travesty. By not providing this recognition, the law denies animals their constiutional rights, a circumstance that must be remedied expeditiously. But that's only true if animals are consider people. And without the amendment, they're not. So apparently necessity isn't a great criterion either.

How, then, can we properly debate the passage of such an amendment? I suppose it would come to the question of whether or not animals really deserve to be treated by the law in the same way humans are. I don't think so, and so I strongly oppose the amendment. But that's not really the point of the post. In reality, I just liked the quasi-paradoxes the conversion of animals into humans created. Hope you liked them too!

Yes, I'm aware I basically just had an argument with myself. I do that occasionally.
posted by Dan 3:30 PM