We recently received a letter to the editor from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
As is the case with most letters that are mass-mailed to newspapers and don’t come from local folks, we didn’t run it. But it’s worth noting what this insane group of people hopes to accomplish: Ending the abuse of fish rights.
PETA has started a campaign to rename fish as “sea kittens” in the hopes that people will find them too cute to hurt.
With photos of these naturally not-cute critters, PETA’s fishinghurts.com Web site asks: “Would people think twice about ordering fish sticks if they were called sea kitten sticks? Would sea kitten soufflé be a hot seller at the local seafood restaurant? Does fillet o’ sea kitten sound even remotely appetizing?”
Along with all kinds of information about how smart and cute “sea kittens” are, you can dress up your own cute little Nemo-like “sea kitten.”
For the revolting cruelty stuff, PETA offers undercover video of bow fishing. Bow fishermen really ought to be applauded for their skills. It’s impressive to watch them.
Having said all that, I wonder if PETA is doing enough, though. They’re forgetting cattle (which also really aren’t that cute).
So here and now, I’m officially launching my campaign to save the beef: Cattle shall henceforth be known as “pasture puppies.”
After all, who could harm or eat a defenseless, cute “pasture puppy?”
(Hmmm. I’m feeling my salivary glands starting to kick in. Those “pasture puppies” look pretty delicious.)
This silliness about animal rights might be ignored but for that infamous logical fallacy, the slippery slope, somehow rearing its ugly head.
Now plants may soon have rights in Switzerland. After that, the world?
In case you missed it, like I did last spring, the Swiss government has asked The Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology to consider the meaning of a provision added to the nation’s constitution a decade ago requiring “account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms.”
The government asked the ECNH to make suggestions as to how this notion of dignity of living beings should be fleshed out from an ethical perspective in relation to plants.
The result was “The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants: Moral Consideration of Plants for Their Own Sake.”
Among their findings: “The committee members unanimously consider an arbitrary harm caused to plants to be morally impermissible. This kind of treatment would include, e.g. decapitation of wild flowers at the roadside without rational reason.”
Now decapitation of a dandelion is a moral issue, morally impermissible. Dare I say, a sin?
All of you ladies who enjoy decapitated flowers in your vases, pay attention now: You could be the subject of a PETP undercover video some day for your decorating methods.
A majority of the committee agreed that using a plant, collectively, as a species or individually, requires moral justification and that plants cannot morally be subject to “absolute ownership.”
This committee did not go so crazy far as to oppose eating plants: “The majority considers any action with or towards plants that serves the self-preservation of humans to be morally justified, as long as it is appropriate and follows the principle of precaution.”
Since it was only a majority, it hints that some members of the committee perhaps couldn’t find it in their hearts to absolve humans of deriving their sustenance from these living beings.
At the very least, now, the rest of us can continue to ethically slaughter millions of innocent vegetables.
If PETA gets its way and if this dignity of plants things morphs into plant rights, humans will have to nourish themselves through some photosynthetic process. Were we to achieve such an unlikely feat, it would probably only be a matter of time before someone starts wondering whether sunbeams deserve dignity and whether we violate their rights by eating them.
In the meantime, PETA should start thinking of cute names for different flowers so it can give PETP a head start whenever it finally forms.
And most of the rest of us will continue to be People Eating Tasty Animals. (PETA shirts are available at Dan Dee Sales).
Smacking my lips over those ‘pasture puppies’