WHY-DUNIT: She took sick chickens from a slaughterhouse; was it a rescue or a crime?
WHY-DUNIT: She took sick chickens from a slaughterhouse; was it a rescue or a crime?
Over the years, animal rights groups have gained a reputation for using confrontational tactics – such as PETAs campaign comparing meat consumption to the Holocaust. The logic is simple: it takes shock to jolt people out of complacency about animal suffering. DxE follows in this tradition; the group’s signature move has been “open rescues”, granting people criminal and civil protection if they forcibly enter a facility to remove an endangered animal. From the activists’ perspective, one virtue of the tactic is that it does not just call attention to an injustice – it attempts, in a small way, to correct […]
Not Taking ‘Bull By The Horns’: Pope Leo spurns pleas to condemn bloody pastime of bullfighting
Not Taking ‘Bull By The Horns’: Pope Leo spurns pleas to condemn bloody pastime of bullfighting
Animal rights groups are reminding Pope Leo of the historic decree ‘De Salute Gregis Dominici’, promulgated by his predecessor Pope Pius V on Nov. 1, 1567, which automatically excommunicated anyone who supported or attended a bullfight. The edict, which denounced bullfights as constituting “cruel and base spectacles of the devil and not of man,” also denied burial to those who died fighting bulls. The Spanish Episcopal Conference, known for its penchant for meddling in political affairs and outspoken on other issues of social justice, has also opted to keep silent on the issue of bullfighting. Ignoring pleas from animal rights […]
Good Samaritan Law: Advocates who rescue animals in grave danger should qualify for ‘necessity defense’
Good Samaritan Law: Advocates who rescue animals in grave danger should qualify for ‘necessity defense’
The ‘necessity defense’ essentially excuses an offense because averting a greater harm justifies committing this lesser harm. Often, the crime being excused is a property-based one, such as trespass. The legal statute requires the defendant acted in an emergency to prevent a significant bodily harm or evil to himself or herself or “someone else.” It doesn’t say that it has to be another human. When we think about who can experience significant bodily harm — it’s a being who is sentient and can experience pain. There is no reason why that couldn’t be a dog or a horse or a […]
