Should Pets Be Granted Personhood? disinfo/2014/06/pets-granted-personhood/ “BARK! BARK! MEOW! MEOW! EQUALITY FOR PETS RIGHT NOW!” - Traditional activist street chant, Cat and Dog Union, Local #932 Cats and dogs have become furry little children in the eyes of many Americans. Pet owners call themselves “mom” or “dad.” Some celebrate their animals’ birthdays and spend thousands of dollars on toys, food and veterinary care. Others even risk their lives for pets, as when owners refused to enter shelters that wouldn’t take in animals before Hurricane Katrina. And now pets appear to be on the path to full citizenship, writes Grimm, a science journalist. “Dogs and cats have reached a critical juncture in their social evolution: As they inch towards personhood, we must decide whether to embrace them as fellow members of society or limit them to being mere pets.” Grimm spends much of his book tracing the history of dogs and cats from wild animals to humans’ tools and on to beloved pets. This was not an easy path—cats, for instance, may have been heralded as gods in ancient Egypt, but they were also stoned, drowned and burned at the stake as witches’ familiars in medieval times. More recently, owners have struggled for courts to recognize pets as something more than property, as beings with rights of their own. via Pets’ rights explored in ‘Citizen Canine’ | Science News.
Posted on: Mon, 02 Jun 2014 03:01:26 +0000
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