Obama pledges support for animal rights

HENDERSON, Nev. - Democrat Barack Obama says he won't just be a president for the American people, but the animals too.

"What about animal rights?" a woman shouted out during the candidate's town hall meeting outside Las Vegas Wednesday after he discussed issues that relate more to humans, like war, health care and the economy.

Obama responded that he cares about animal rights very much, "not only because I have a 9-year-old and 6-year-old who want a dog." He said he sponsored a bill to prevent horse slaughter in the Illinois state Senate and has been repeatedly endorsed by the Humane Society.

"I think how we treat our animals reflects how we treat each other," he said. "And it's very important that we have a president who is mindful of the cruelty that is perpetrated on animals."

<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080116/ap_on_el_pr/political_play_of_the_day_3;_ylt=AhOs_f.TcsJe8iZ2vYDu3pxg.3QA>

:applause:

This is actually an issue for me- and lots of other people.

The horse slaughter bills of late have been a disaster for poorer/middle class rural folks. Now instead of selling a horse for $300 (to a slaughterhouse for dog food/export/glue/etc.) at the end of its life, folks are having to pay up to $1000 for a vet-visit and burial. It's a feel-good law that does no good in the real world.

-app

Horses are expensive, that's just a fact of life and anybody who knows the first thing about them knows it. Killing them cruelly to save a few bucks is animal cruelty, and it's not acceptable.

LeftyMom, Peacebaby, and sandnsea,

Y'all are of course correct that there are not too many middle-class or less well off horse owners. But in my neighborhood, there are at least a few dozen or so exceptions: oldtimers (well, some as young as 40-something) on family farms who still plow with horses or mules (I know a few guys in their 20's who use horses in small-scale logging projects - they are nowhere near rich). For these folks, the grass is free, they do most of their own shots and medicating, and tractors would be much more expensive. A $1300 change in the equation for each of those horses means a big deal to them. But I'll freely admit that such folks are <1% of the horse-owning public.

Nonetheless, I still have serious reservations about these horse-slaughter bills. Horses can be quite intelligent creatures, but so can pigs. Cattle are at least very good at being cattle (the overbred varieties of turkeys and sheep are not so good at even basic homeostasis, but that's another discussion...). Right now, it's legal to slaughter pigs, cattle, turkeys, sheep, etc. I think that most (omnivores) here at DU would agree that such slaughter should be done as humanely and quickly as possible, but why should horses be in another class? They are quadruped grazers, though perhaps smarter than cattle and cuter than pigs.

All of us living beings will become worm-food eventually. The question is how? and when? Mandating that a horse must be placed in a plastic-lined sanitary landfill (if the owner lacks a suitable place to bury it, as per the federal law), will delay the worms' meal by a few hundred years, but to what end? Is that really a benefit when the horse could as easily enter the food chain, and thus be immediately re-cycled into the web of nature?

Slaughter houses are not pretty places, but even death by natural causes is rarely pretty.

I respect LeftyMom's (and others') belief that animals have an intrinsic right to life that is on par with (or close to) humans' intrinsic rights. But I also disagree with this notion: to me, animals deserve respect, but not an inherent right to life. Animals are co-travelers on this journey, but we humans (for now) are the (admittedly often lousy) pilots: nature's first attempt at ramped-up consciousness and culture. These equine slaughter bills are a trojan horse that will advance a broader notion of animal rights into society. In my mind, this will harm family farms, and even the animals themselves (the surest route to a breed's extinction is for people to stop eating it and/or farmers to stop raising it. My own morality with regards to animal welfare is much closer to Joel Salatin's of Polyface farm, Michael Pollan's, Barbara Kingsolver's, and the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy's.

-app

Edited for grammar, clarity, and to ramble on a bit more...

underlying issues of why we have poor rural folk who would need $300 so badly to put a horse through a trip to a slaughter house, it would be much more beneficial to both humans and the horse.

I'll also add that if someone is too poor to own a horse, they shouldn't. Poor people don't need to own a horse which is a lot of expense for vet bills, food during the winter, and upkeep. Even in the most poor, rural areas they would barely use a horse for travel. A car or some other form of transportation (motorbike, scooter, etc) is much cheaper and makes a great deal more sense. Horses have become a pet or for pleasure and no longer any kind of necessity.

As Obama noted, the way we treat our animals is definitely a sign of our humanity and that is very important when dealing with the "real world". I completely disagee with you that the this is a "feel-good law".

These middle-class horse owners will have some serious entrepreneurial opportunities, I'd say.

-app

We can't afford to feed them, let alone the annual vet bills and other care they need. And for those who somehow manage to have inherited a piece of land from grandpa, we sure as hell don't sell our beloved pet to the glue factory.

What about cows, pigs, etc? They are not entitled to protection because they are not as adorable? That's just mean.

This is a MAJOR issue with me too and I am proud to say that I voted for Obama!

:dem: :kick:

The fact that he addressed this is definitely a positive factor for me where Obama is concerned.

know we're not going to switch to mass vegetarianism anytime soon--animals that are raised for food are supposed to be treated in a humane way, such as free-range chickens, pigs allowed room in pens to move around, cattle allowed the same right in a pasture, etc.

There is, and always has been, a hope for more meatless meals for everyone within their diet, and better education for those who need it.

"Food" animals are not considered in the same category as animals in laboratories, those that are pets, animals trapped for fur, and other such cruel and inhumane practices.

It's a long struggle to get even small considerations. Many schools now don't dissect cats, frogs or other animals: they use computer animal models instead. A lot of companies who used to experiment on rabbits, for example, now use just animal tissue, and the winners in the LD50 tests are those who use previous tests instead of just repeating the same ones.

I know a lot of people who despise PETA and consider them outrageous, but they have accomplished quite a bit in the past 30-40 years. They have brought animal rights issues to the fore, and most people nowadays are much more aware of the tortures our animal friends have endured at the hands of humans. It's been a long time to gain recognition, but they've managed to do that much.

I am glad to hear this.

However he just lost the puppy mill, dog/horse racing, Vivisection, factory farmers, pet industry and "everybody else who makes money abusing animals" vote.

The ultimate goal of animal rights is to end all of those things and more....he may have meant animal welfare issues?

Wasn't horse slaughter a federal bill? I think that did pass, but the slaughterhouses just moved to Canada and Mexico. Maybe flvegan will show up in this thread, as I know he's more uptodate on these issues.

I will seriously consider any candidate who is serious about "animal rights" !

both "welfare" and "rights" interchangeably, but I know the difference. And yes--we want to end all those things, and much, much more.

When I lived in L.A., I worked on several initiatives--one to put mountain lions on the "protected" list, one to continue this as some sneaky GOP bastards tried to end it (through Daryl Issa--I'm not sure of the correct spelling, but he was a GOPer), and to ban leghold traps. We succeeded on these issues, but there is a very high puke factor more in northern CA that wanted to keep "hunting" cougars by treeing them and shooting them point blank, and those who wanted to perpetuate "canned hunts" which are simply one of the most disgusting and repulsive practices in the world. The problem is to keep at the issues--you can't take up arms against an issue and declare victory after one victory--it's a constant battle to ensure that victory remains.

And I am still profoundly saddened by the debacle re: pets during Katrina.

I am THRILLED to hear Obama speak about the better creatures on this planet. ;)

Clearly an animal welfare (and small farmer) issue, not animal rights.


Snipped from:
http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/071212nj1.htm



Barack Obama, for example, says that his administration would reinstate caps -- eliminated in the 2002 farm bill -- on the size of livestock operations eligible to receive environmental cleanup funding, thus aiding small farmers in their competition against CAFOs.

Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton have both proposed that local officials be given more say in where new CAFOs can be built. Additionally, both support stricter environmental regulations on factory farms. (Currently, many livestock operations are exempt from federal air-quality regulations due to a stipulation that grants Clean Air Act immunity to CAFOs in return for merely reporting emissions data.)

But no candidate has taken a more stringent position against CAFOs than John Edwards, who made waves earlier this year by calling for a national moratorium on the expansion of existing CAFOs and the construction of new facilities. During a campaign tour through the sparsely populated counties in the western part of the state in October, Edwards unveiled the proposal, which dovetails with his plan to ban packer ownership of hog lots and break up vertically integrated Big Pork. Local communities could individually opt out of the CAFO moratorium, but Edwards' rural initiatives team hopes that the proposal would dramatically reduce the number of corporate megalots in livestock-heavy states like Iowa and North Carolina.

I am of the camp that hopes they take it ever further than this. That particulate industry is morally bankrupt with their appallingly inhumane conditions. Better yet, let's all be vegetarians!

A ban on eating them :D

Banning CAFO's would help family farms AND animals: a nice win for all except the corporate polluters...

-app

Very intriguing statement. I'd like to hear him elaborate on that.

to speak out about the poisened pet food.He has 3 dogs.

?

...would be pretty near impossible on the campaign trail.

:shrug:

It's their business, not ours.

he doesn't agree with the good Colonel.