Do Animals Have Rights?… in 60 Seconds (BONUS: Do Humans Have Rights?)
Channel: Daily Insight
Date: 2019-05-05

Imagine a lion stalking a baby zebra on the African savanna. The zebra starts to straggle behind its herd and the lion sees an opportunity. It pounces, and the zebra is killed and eaten by the lion and its pride. Will human onlookers intervene to stop the lion attacking the zebra? No. Does the baby zebra have rights? In nature, no.

Imagine that the United Nations created a new document called the Universal Declaration of Animal Rights. It gave all animals a single, unalienable right — the right to life.

Go back to the baby zebra being stalked by the lion. Will the lion observe the new UN-declared rights of the zebra? No. Animals are incapable of observing any man-made rules. Will human onlookers intervene to stop the lion from killing the zebra? Well, if they did, they would be denying the lion its right to life. If it can’t feed, it will die.

Do animals have rights? No. Rights are a human construct. Furthermore, animals are amoral and incapable of observing these rights.

And that’s “Do Animals Have Rights?… in 60 Seconds”.

As an aside, do humans have rights? If instead, a baby human was being stalked by the lion, then of course, human onlookers would intervene. Humans have rights insofar that humans say they have rights. But this is not universally true. Take North Koreans for example. Do they have the right to democracy or freedom of expression? No. Are Chinese people allowed to publicly protest about their corrupt government — a right outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — no.

Do animals have rights? No. Do people have rights? Barely. It depends where you live and how willing your government is to enforce those rights. Thank you for listening.

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

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MUSIC
A Good Day On the African Planes
by Doug Maxwell/Media Right Productions
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwhJTv7O8EmDwyvqMBLHcHg

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