Characterization of Animals as “Property” Blocks Recognition of Rights

Characterization of Animals as “Property” Blocks Recognition of Rights

Gary Francione, Professor of Law, Rutgers, 2004, Animal Rights: Current debates and new directions, eds. Sunstein & Nussbaum, p. 117

The property status of animals renders meaningless any balancing that is supposedly required under the humane treatment principle or animal welfare laws, because what we really balance are the interests of property owners against the interest of their animal property. It is, of course, absurd to suggest that we can balance human interests, which are protected by claims of right in general and of a right to own property in particular, against the interests of property, which exists only as a means to the ends of humans. Although we claim to recognize that we may prefer animal interests over human interests only when there is a conflict of interests, there is always a conflict between the interests of property owners who want to use their property and the interests of their animal property. The human property interest will almost always prevail. The animal in question is always a “pet” or a “laboratory animal,” or a “game animal,” or a “food animal,” or a “rodeo animal,” or some other form of property that exists solely for our use and has no value except that which we give it. There is really no choice to be made between the human and the animal interest because the choice has already been predetermined by the property status of the animal; the “suffering” of property owners who cannot use their property as they wish counts more than animal suffering. We are allowed to impose any suffering required to use our animal property for a particular purpose even if that purpose is our mere amusement or pleasure. As long as we use our animal property to generate an economic benefit there is no effective limit on our use or treatment of animals.
PROPERTY STATUS RENDERS MEANINGLESS ATTEMPTS TO SERIOUSLY PROTECT ANIMAL INTERESTS

Gary Francione, Professor of Law, Rutgers, 2004, Animal Rights: Current debates and new directions, eds. Sunstein & Nussbaum, p. 120

Steven M. Wise, Animal rights attorney and professor Vermont Law School, 2002, Drawing the Line: science and the case for animal rights, p. 15

As legal things, nonhuman animals are treated today as human slaves were treated once and continue to be treated in those few places in which human slavery is unlawfully practiced. The African American writer Alice Walker says that this, “even for those of us who recognize its validity, is a difficult one to face. Especially so if we are the descendants of slaves. Or of slave owners. Or of both. Especially so if we are responsible in some way for the present treatment of animals [or]…if we are complicit in their enslavement and destruction, which is to say at this juncture in history, master.
DESIGNATING ALL NONHUMAN ANIMALS AS PROPERTY IS SLAVERY

Cass Sunstein, Law Professor, University of Chicago, 2004, Animal Rights: Current debates and new directions, eds. Sunstein & Nussbaum, p. 11

There is no simple answer. Perhaps those who insist that animals should not be seen as property are making a simple and modest claim: Human beings should not be able to treat animals however they wish. Their starting point seems to be this: If you are property, you are, in law and in effect, a slave, wholly subject to the will of your owner. A table, a chair, or a stereo can be treated as the owner likes; it can be broken, or sold or replaced at the owner’s whim. Many people think that, for animals, the status of property is devastating to actual protection against cruelty and abuse.

Courts Refuse to Extend Recognition of Rights to Animals

Steven M. Wise, Professor Animal Rights Law at the Harvard Law School, 2000, “Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals” Questia p. 42

A century ago, the United States Supreme Court could write that "the fundamental principles upon which the common property in game rests have undergone no change" since Roman times, ⁶⁰ and Holmes could say, with respect to wild animals, that "we have adopted the Roman law." ⁶¹ Few would challenge either statement today. With almost no exceptions, the common law of wild animals in England and every American state still hews to Roman law either by (1) citing Justinian, (2) citing Bracton, Blackstone, or Kent, who incorporated the essentials of Roman law, (3) citing cases that adopted the essentials of Roman law, (4) calling Roman law common law, or (5) stating a common law rule that sounds like a Roman rule. ⁶² The common law of domesticated animals is even more overtly Roman. A leading modern American legal encyclopedia tersely states that "[g]enerally, all domestic animals are regarded as property, and an owner thereof has a property right therein as absolute as that in inanimate objects." ⁶³
COURTS HAVE RULED THAT NON-HUMANS ARE NOT “PERSONS” UNDER THE LAW

Gary L. Francione, Professor of Law, Rutgers University, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 250

LeVasseur argued that he was trying to prevent greater harm to another in two senses. First, he argued that the dolphins should be included within the term another. The appellate court rejected this argument because the statute defined “another” as a person, and although corporations and associations can be considered as “persons” under the law, the court ruled that dolphins could not be so considered.