"What a minefield of wilful assertions is your leader (Animal Wrongs, 11 December) with its cynical view of "animal rights.”
Of course, the debt of humans to animals is so vast that for most any feeling of gratitude (or even doubt) would bring on a burden of guilt too great to be endured. Perhaps this is why there is no state funding at all for animal charities.
Reminders of our debt: food, transport, clothing, vivisection, companionship, dreadful “cultural rituals” (bullfighting voodoo), military testing (missiles, poison gas) -- where do we stop?
Millions are living in torture at this moment. Yet animals are not only gifted in ways unattainable by humans: they know pain, grief, fear, despair, devotion. They are better parents (the wolf, for instance) than most humans.
Look at human kind -- predatory, destructive, killing more and more creatures with their own terrifying increase. What moral right have humans to lay on sensitive creatures the sufferings of their own vanity, greed and cowardice, and a host of various sins? Don’t quote the scriptures. They can be quoted back.”Naomi Lewis.
