Animals Count

What are the chances of cows getting voting rights in parliament?

- Animals Count website

The issue of animal rights is a particularly controversial one, with good and bad arguments on either side. In recent years the debate has become even more polarised. On one side we’re presented with images of animals kept in truly horrific conditions, and on the other with extremists with little respect for human rights. However, from a quickish perusal of their website, it looks like the new Animals Count party (linked to a Dutch equivalent with two MPs) might mark a welcome change in the nature of the debate.

Their apparent tendency to hyperbole aside, I find myself in agreement with much of what the group are advocating. I believe that all people are entitled to basic human rights, protecting them from oppression and cruelty, simply on the basis that they are sentient beings capable of suffering and pain. And on this basis I can see no good reason for excluding the bulk of the animal world from the same consideration, other than by drawing an arbitrary line between human beings and every other sentient creature.

Obviously, a number of rights (as promoted by documents such as the UDHR) make sense only in the context of intelligent beings capable of advanced reasoning. So I’m not suggesting that animals should have voting rights for example. But I do think that there’s a strong moral case to be made for moving towards less cruel means of treating animals, with the ultimate aim of making such cruelty illegal.

When it comes to the most difficult issue, that of medical experiments on animals, the party has taken what seems to me the only sensible course, and called for “an independent scientific inquiry into the validity of animal research”.

It’ll be interesting to see where this group goes.