Hit and Run Injuring Humans or Animals the Same?
The drive to create moral equivalencies between human beings and animals continues. In California, a bill has been introduced that could treat leaving the scene of an accident involving a car and an animal, the same as a hit and run involving a human being. From AB 1224, authored by Assemblyman Mike Eng:Existing law requires the driver of any vehicle involved in an accident resulting in injury or death to another person to immediately stop the vehicle at the scene of the accident and to fulfill specified requirements. Under existing law, a violation of this provision is either a felony or a misdemeanor.
This bill would declare the Legislature's intent to enact legislation to include animals, pets, and livestock under the basic "hit and run" statute in order to fine drivers who leave the scene of an accident without trying to contact the owner or local authorities or render aid to the injured animal, pet, or farm animal.
Labels: Animal RIghts. AB 1224
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 10:21 AM
15 Comments
15 Comments:
and then there was this...
http://www.opposingviews.com/articles/opinion-three-reasons-society-shouldn-t-rush-to-condemn-bestiality
I don't go to links but the one just given indicates the subject matter is pretty self-explanatory. Bestiality is one of those things about which humans are "exceptional" and it's an insult to the non-human animal, which is involved with why it's wrong for humans as well.
But having to stop after having hit a non-human animal should be the law and should have been long since. "Human exceptionalism"'s take on animal rights degrading humans is not entirely unlike Ku Klux Klansmen saying if we let them sit anywhere they want on the bus or use the same bathroom as us next they'll start marrying our women. Yet SHS supported the civil rights movement. Rights are rights. They are not what we say they are; they are what they ARE. This is a good and long-overdue law and to find it "concerning" is in itself concerning, and leads in the opposite direction of that which can defeat the death culture. But I seem to be talking to my shadow here.
Treating them better and valuing their lives does NOT mean treating us worse and devaluing our lives. It's the opposite. We have gotten to the point of treating humans as if their lives do not matter as the result of having treated non-human animals as if their lives do not matter.
Hey, whom do you notify if you hit a skunk?
I suppose that would be the wildlife patrol.
Morality is morality, and that's always a matter of equivalency. There is nothing wrong with being decent and civilized and moral; those are the qualities that SHS decries being lost. It's how we treat those weaker than ourselves and over whom we have power that defines us. If we can't treat non-human animals whom those criteria define decently, what surprise is it that we don't treat humans whom they define decently? Humanity is humanity and decency is decency.
The skunk is dead. The skunk is not a person. The skunk cannot be aided by calling wildlife patrol. This has nothing to do with being humane. To treat it as being like a human death is to treat it as though there is something sacred about the skunk's body, as though it needs to be identified and buried and responsibility for its death assigned and possibly punishment meted out. There are reasons to report if you hit a human that simply do not apply in the case of animals, and they are not chiefly issues of being humane.
I profoundly disagree. And on top of everything else, a society which has reverence for other animals' lives would have more reverence for human life. Decency doesn't start at the door marked "human."
Heck, I'd have no problem stopping for someone's animal..
To get their contact information for when I sue them for endangering My Life.....
Cyber hugs from Talking Rock, USA.. :)
I'm with you, Mz. McGrew.
My folks are ranchers-- if someone tries to render assistance to one of our bulls that gets hit, they're going to get killed, and probably get the folks who try to help *them* hurt, as well.
(this assumes that whoever hit the bull is able to move; we've been lucky so far, but the state of what was left of the vehicle looked like he should've been dead)
What I find funny is that Lanthe seems to be ignoring that, as the law is written, the animals gain their value primarily via association with humans....
Foxier: Rendering assistance might not necessarily mean handling the animal (and in fact an untrained person could do more harm than good by handling the animal, as well as risking injury to themselves); it could be just notifying wildlife patrol who would send trained experts, or calling 911 so that emergency vets could be called to the scene, or doing whatever is possible without endangering oneself to lessen the chances that another car will hit the animal before help arrives. We can't expect everyone to be a trained veterinarian any more than we can expect them to be EMTs for humans. As for the law, of course that's the way it is; humans created the laws. The issue is whether the law recognizes and respects the obligation to be humane. If we aren't humane, we aren't truly human, and as long as we aren't those things, the death culture can run rampant and amok.
Lanthe-
The text says "contact ...OR render aid", which would counter your point.
PS-
I shy heavily away from anyone who starts talking about who is or is not "truly" human; doubly so when it boils down to "those who do not agree with me."
Why, if I have to treat hitting an animal like a crime, is it not okay to hunt or even raise humans for food? If the same people aren't hoping to totally outlaw the consumption of meat (or are they?), then what exactly is being said with this law? The logic is so bizarre.
I really shouldn't play devil's advocate -- the Peter Singers of the world might not think it's a half bad idea.
this law doesn't freak me out like the others that Wesley has mentioned do. In fact, if someone hit my cat and didn't try to at least call for help, I'd want them to get fined, too. This law doesn't create a moral equivalencey between people and animals because the penalities are different-hitting and killing a person will get you 3-15 in the pen, killing an animal will get you a fine, so I don't see a problem with this law.
Foxfier: No, "rendering aid" could be calling an emergency vet, waving other drivers around the animal etc., and if the latter is not sufficient aid, then one must contact the authorities. The sense of the law, which needs improvement in its terminology (Wesley's point that one might get bitten, etc. is quite valid) is that if one does not do one, one must do the other. A civilized person does not hit an animal in the road and just drive on, and the law is about our being civilized. When we kill animals for food, it is intentional, and for the sake of our own survival, just as other animals kill other animals for the sake of their own survival; we are animals with certain attributes which we call human, just as a dog, for example, is an animal with certain attributes which we call canine; among those human attributes are the ability to call any animal, including ourselves, anything, and the understanding of the importance of honoring the impulse to be civilized rather than barbaric. You might want to get that chip off your shoulder and not make assumptions; it's obvious that you don't see the point I was making about the integral role humanity plays in being truly human, which human exceptionalism considers important.
CollegeGoyl: Because both involve ethics and humanity.
SAFEpres: Right.
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