NEW FRENCH LAW: DOGS NO LONGER MERE "PROPERTY" BUT "LIVING BEINGS"

The scientific establishment and the law have been trailing behind in concepts that are obvious to us since early childhood:  that mammals, birds, and many other animals are just like us.  They express feelings, they love, they fear, they grieve, they feel pain, and they establish bonds with other creatures just like us. 

The scientific establishment resists "anthropomorphizing" animals.  That's what they call obvious evidence of animals' feelings. 

 

So scientists resort to all kinds of convoluted language to get around the fact that animals feel pain - lest they could be accused of cruelty when they torture billions of animals in the name of research.

 

And agribusiness too needs to play down those facts when they cram animals into cages too small for them, and treat them as things instead of as sentient living creatures. 

 

The following article is about the concept of a dog as a living being instead of property.  The reason why so many cases of animal cruelty go unpunished or barely punished is that animals are still considered as property.

 

By the way, why not similar rights for cats as well? And primates, horses, farm animals and other mammals? 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

DAILY MAIL - Ruff justice! French dogs voted 'living beings' after centuries of slumming it as 'personal property' (...and it means wealthy Parisiennes can leave their fortunes to them)

 

For hundreds of years they have been given the same legal status as a table or a chair, but now animals will finally be classed as living beings after a contentious bill has been approved by French MPs.  
 

Nearly 700,000 signed a petition against the archaic 1804 law that states that animals are just ‘movable goods’.   The bill describes animals as ‘living and feeling beings’.   It gives France’s 63 million pets more protection against cruelty. 
 

Philosopher and former education minister Luc Ferry signed the petition and said that the Napoleonic legislation, which placed animals on the same level as furniture, was ‘absurd’.  He said: ‘No one has ever tortured a clock. Animals suffer, they have emotions and feelings. It is not a question of making animals subjects of the law… but simply of protecting them against certain forms of cruelty.’
 

The upgraded status will also mean that couples can fight for shared custody in divorce cases and owners whose pets are run over by a negligent driver will be able to claim compensation for the suffering caused.

 

Frédéric Lefebvre, the former trade minister, said that inheritance law would also change to allow owners to leave their fortune to their pets.

 

However, the move was denounced as a dangerous attack on the French way of life by critics who said that it could lead to the end of breeding, hunting, fishing, bull-fighting and the eating of red meat.  Critics also fear that animal rights activists would use the law to challenge slaughter practices on the ground that it is wrong to kill ‘beings with feelings’.

 

Philippe Gosselin, a centre-right MP, said: ‘Agriculture will be threatened, along with wolf culls and… hunting.  And what about laboratories and abattoirs, which could find themselves in very complicated legal cases?’

 

Proposals to ban cockfights and bullfighting were rejected.

Source
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2606301/Ruff-justice-French-dogs-voted-living-beings-centuries-slumming-personal-property-means-wealthy-Parisiennes-leave-fortunes-them.html

RELATED

Pet as persons  David Grimm's book Citizen Canine
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2600733/Has-mans-best-friend-PERSON-Cats-dogs-blurring-line-people-pets-claims-book.html

More articles on dogs and other canines on this blog
http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/search/label/Animals%20-%20Canines

Articles on cruelty against animals
http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/search/label/Animals%20-%20Cruelty%20against%20animals 

******************************************************************************