 Learn More: Lewis&Clark will host its 16th annual animal-law conference in October. For more information, see lclark.edu/org/ncal. |
Laura Ireland Moore has been fighting for animals ever since she founded an animal rights group while attending junior high in La Grange, Ill.
A vegan by age 16, Moore got her degree in environmental studies from the University of Colorado. In 1998 she enrolled at Lewis&Clark Law School, where animal law was growing in popularity among students. After graduating in 2001, she founded the National Center for Animal Law at Lewis&Clark, a division of the law school.
Still only 31, Moore directs the center and teaches 15 to 20 students a year. The center rarely embroils itself in public disputes, but Moore recently became involved in one when she wrote Dean Mark Richardson of Oregon Health&Science University last month to urge him to “discontinue the use of live pigs” in a first-year elective course. Moore is leaving her job in August because her husband is taking a job elsewhere. But we asked her in the meantime to explain more about the developing field of animal law.
WW: What differentiates your center from other animal rights groups?
Laura Ireland Moore: I wouldn’t say we’re an animal rights group. We do animal protection law. We only take cases and work on issues when it’s furthering the interests of animals. There are other animal-law attorneys who do not necessarily work for animals. Environmental law is a good parallel. There are environmental lawyers protecting the trees and there are environmental lawyers protecting the companies who cut down the trees. Animal law is the same sort of thing.
Should animals have rights like humans, or is it that humans should have more responsibilities toward animals?
It’s certainly not that animals should have the right to vote or to have a car. It’s about respecting what each individual species needs. Under the current laws, some animals do have protection from cruelty—those are companion animals. But the law is set up to exempt things that are cruel to animals, basically if we make money off them. If you look at the Oregon anti-cruelty statute, it exempts rodeos, common husbandry practices, any sort of research.
While hunting may seem cruel in America, because it’s not necessary for most people’s survival, what happens in a culture where people must hunt to survive? Do animals still have the same rights?
Animals are not on this planet for us to use. There needs to be respect for the fact that they are individual living beings. If people can live without using animals, they should do that.
What about the Inuit in Canada, who help support themselves by hunting?
I’m not an expert on the Inuit. But if they can mine and sell gas, diamonds, gold and heavy metals, they can certainly ship in some tofu. If everyone had as much respect for animals and the sacrifice they make for humans as [they do] for native cultures, this world would be a much better place.
You also oppose using animals for research?
Yes. I’m not a doctor, I’m not a researcher. But there’s a lot of research from the medical community that shows animal testing doesn’t work. We don’t have a cure for cancer, we don’t have a cure for AIDS. Knowing how something works in a rat doesn’t tell you how it works in a person, because our bodies are different.
What if there were cases where it actually did benefit humans?
Well, but it’s a hypothetical that’s not true, so…
But—
I’m not going to answer that question.
OHSU spokesman Jim Newman has a list of some medical advances made possible by animal testing. They include the smallpox vaccine (cows), the polio vaccine (monkeys) and insulin.
Jim and others in the animal research industry have personal and financial interests in perpetuating the myth that animal research works.
Have you ever had a pet?
We have two dogs and two cats. They have really good lives. They own us; we don’t own them.
It seems strange you would think having pets is OK.
There’s debate about that. But most people in the animal advocacy movement do not have a problem with people having pets, or, as we call them, companion animals. Legally, animals are property. But they’re living beings as well. What we do have a problem with is puppy mills and pet stores and the fact that people buy and sell animals.
Where’d you get your pets?
The two cats were from friends who lived next door to a man whose cat lived outdoors and wasn’t spayed. They watched her get pregnant a number of times and her kittens would become feral. The neighbor finally allowed my friends to get her spayed—they took the pregnant cat in, took care of her kittens, got everyone spayed and neutered and I have two of those cats. One of our dogs was adopted from the humane society. Our other dog was rescued from a reservation in Washington.
Why oppose the use of live pigs in a class at OHSU?
That’s not something we normally do. We were contacted by concerned OHSU students. I didn’t know it was gonna go to the press. I was just writing a letter to say, “Hey, this isn’t OK.” We don’t really take positions on a lot of things. The Animal Welfare Act requires you to use non-animal alternatives when they are available. So our position was: The Animal Welfare Act requires you to stop this. Since 126 other schools educate their medical students without using live animals, it seems like there’s a reasonable alternative.
OHSU’s Newman says many of those schools actually do use live pigs for this class, but because they are private schools, they are not subject to the same level of scrutiny as schools like OHSU.
Whether it’s 60 or 120 schools, there’s a way to have medical students become good doctors without using live animals in the classroom.
Do you go to the zoo?
I loved the zoo when I was little. But I haven’t been in decades.
What do you make of the tiger attack in San Francisco several weeks ago?
In one sense, you get exposed to animals by seeing them. But, as we’ve seen, having wild animals in captivity is not good. It’s dangerous for people and there’s just not a way to do it humanely. Animals should be in the wild.
Fact: Over 120 illegal acts were committed by animal rights groups in America in 2006—the most ever in a year, according to Science magazine. About two-thirds—66 percent—of the targets were biomedical in nature.
Besides, humans are on earth because of natural selection. Random acts of nature allowed us to evolve. Humans ARE omnivores. We are programmed genetically to not only want meat, but to actually need meat. Sur, you can get by now on diets of Tofu, we have developed in the sciences to realize how to fuel our bodies by alternative means. It goes without saying, however, that if humans are meant to eat meat in the natural world, the cessation of meat consumption by humans would provide for an imbalance of nature.
Be happy eating your Tofu. I personally hate the stuff, and I prefer a nice steak. I enjoy hunting and fishing. I cherish the moments spent with my fater doing these activities. This is what we like to do. You like to do other things, and you should be happy doing them. But don't tell me what to like and dislike. Humans are hunters, and this is dictated by nature and biology. We are meant to hunt.
What are you going to do next, make it illegal for lions in Africa to kill Impala for meals? Sure, they aren't as intelligent and they do not understand they are doing wrong. So what are we going to do, provide TofImapala and then put all the impala on a separate refuge? I wonder what you'd do then with this other imbalance in nature you are creating, by having a population explosion of impala?
Do you really think the people in the medieval ages should have not killed all the mice fostering the black plague?
Your views and your energies are spent on a lot of irrational and silly thinking, lacking scientific knowledge.
Are these the same evil scientists who are trying to disprove god and teach that horrible myth of evolution?
The far left progressives are just like the far right Christians; lacking in rational thought and having no interest in consensus.
The other commenter, RW, is very confused. We don't need meat, nor is tofu some grand scientific discovery. Nor are we "meant" to hunt. It's just something we picked up along the way, and which is now no longer necessary. Omnivorism makes carnism an elective. Since there are millions of people who thrive on a vegan diet (and many of whom have done this for decades), there really is no refuting this fact.
Also, there is no contribution by humans to natural balance. The vast majority of humankind's meat consumption is agricultural, not wild. And, if humans did source all their meat from the wild, then there would certainly be an imbalance: Our planet would be wiped out in no time at all. As it is, we have reached a tipping point with animal agriculture. This industry kills 55 billion animals every year worldwide, and that number is increasing as countries like China increase their meat consumption to achieve parity with Western countries. This industry puts a tremendous load on the environment, harming people and wild animals.
You also bring up another straw man argument. No AR person thinks non-human animals should not follow their own evolutionary development. But humans and non-humans, as you point out, are not the same. We do not live in the wild. We do not need to kill to survive, therefore, any killing we do our contribute to is unnecessary and, thus, wrong. As moral agents, we have that duty to moral patients like non-human animals, even if they cannot reciprocate. ARAs would like to see wild animals left alone to live as they please and for humans to better protect their environment.
Straw man #2 is your argument about the bubonic plague. It fails to take into consideration that societies evolve, too. What was socially acceptable 500 years ago is not necessarily appropriate today, such as slavery, sexism and so on. That said, ARAs also do not believe that we should just lay there and die if threatened by disease or a nonhuman that might well be trying to kill us. Just as with wild animals, when it comes down to who gets to actually survive, may the fittest win.