Animal Rights

Our law and morality extends protection to human children and disabled people because even in their limited state, they have an interest in living and in existing for their own sake. Other animals have the same interests, yet they are denied protection, and have the status of property like toilet paper or chairs.

There was once a time when I could casually drive my fork into one of John Jay’s steaks and then slice it swiftly with my knife—without wincing. I haven’t become a vegetarian, but my relationship with the steak in front of me has changed greatly within the last month.