Hi and welcome back! Slowly, slowly humanity stumbles toward a brighter future. Legislators on the Isle of Man have proposed a new bill that recognizes five basic rights for animals. Today, Lord Snow Presides over some good news: another corner of our world has recognized the pressing need to grant rights to animals.
(Jim Linwood, CC.) A rare Manx Loaghtan goat. It’ll have animal rights too hopefully!
Human Rights: The Rising Tide That Lifts All Boats.
The vast error that many people make is in thinking that necessary rights can be abrogated and ignored for one class of people without impacting literally everyone else in that community. This is not true. As Human Rights Watch has observed about just one right:
Where access to safe and legal abortion services are unreasonably restricted, a number of human rights may be at risk.
They go on to list a bunch of those other human rights: life, healthcare, access to information, nondiscrimination, freedom from cruel or degrading treatment, privacy, deciding for oneself the size of one’s family, security, liberty, enjoying the benefits of scientific progress, and even freedom of conscience and religion.
And it’s the simple truth. Misogynistic men, in particular, often fall prey to thinking that blocking women’s access to their rights won’t impact them as men at all.
When it comes to human rights, the rising tide lifts all boats. Everyone benefits when basic human rights are a given in a society.
Animal Rights Matter.
Similarly, it seems to me that communities benefit when animals are given some basic considerations and protections under law.
This brings us to the Isle of Man, also called Mann. It’s a tiny little island situated between Great Britain and Ireland.
Isle of Man map. (Wikipedia, CC. Edited.) 8000 hrs in photoshop plz no boolee
People have inhabited the island since about 6500 BCE. Right now, it’s a self-governing British Crown dependency headed by Queen Elizabeth, but it’s not part of the United Kingdom (UK) officially. About 83k people live there now.
In 1881, their parliament became the first legislative body in the whole world to grant any women the right to vote. (They excluded married women due to a quirk of language: all householders could vote — but married women weren’t, by definition, householders. Only women without husbands could be householders in their own right.)
So now they’re proposing a bill to recognize basic animal rights on the Isle of Man.
The Animal Welfare Bill: Recognizing Five Animal Rights.
The government of the Isle of Man calls this bill the Animal Welfare Bill 2021. The BBC wrote about it a few days ago.
It recognizes five “freedoms” that animals on their isle should be able to enjoy: not being subjected to injury or disease, hunger or thirst, or fear or discomfort, and also being able to “express normal behavior.” I’m all for all of them.
The Isle of Man already had laws for some forms of animal cruelty, and they had other laws that protected livestock from ill treatment. But now, all animals on the island will hopefully be granted these basic animal rights.
This bill is only in its early stages still. Worth noting: the UK itself already has such laws already. In fact, according to this BBC page the UK was the first country in the world to implement any laws protecting animals. The UK’s Animal Welfare Act has protected basic animal rights since 2007. So this bill will bring the Isle of Man into greater accord with the UK — and in the best way possible.
I hope this bill passes.
Today, Lord Snow Presides over another country recognizing animal rights as a necessity.
NEXT UP: As the SBC’s hypocrisy continues to unfold into public view, the more control-hungry flocks spring into action — to silence those exposing that hypocrisy. We’ll see how that process looks in the wild. (A bunch of you already know exactly what I’m talking about, but don’t you worry. There shall be screenshots.)
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About Lord Snow Presides (LSP)
Lord Snow Presides is our off-topic weekly chat series. Lord Snow was my very sweet white cat. He actually knew quite a bit. Though he’s passed on, he now presides over a suggested topic for the day. Of course, please feel free to chime in with anything on your mind: there’s no official topic on these days. We especially welcome pet pictures!
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