Horton: We Need Consistency in How We Treat Animal Cruelty

In my political theory class, animal rights was the last unit that we went over before the end of school. I appreciate the effort that went into the creation, but animal rights theory seemed so silly to me that I couldn’t take it seriously. But what I can take seriously is Michael Vick. Michael Vick is my favorite NFL player of all time by a long shot, and I can attribute many school hours when I was supposed to be paying attention in class to watching his highlight reels over and over and over again. I don’t know exactly where it started, as I’ve never seen a live game of his or had any connection to him whatsoever, but there was something about watching him that made me wonder why he wasn’t talked about more, why he’s not brought up in the "best NFL quarterback ever" conversation, why I’ve never heard his name in Hall of Fame discussions. And then I saw that gap between the 2006 and the 2009 seasons. Wait, why’s he on the Eagles now? 

Vick was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of competitive dog fighting, procuring and training pit bulls for fighting, and conducting the enterprise across state lines. In my immaturity, I was very quick to say, “Over some dogs?” -- a statement I can’t believe I uttered now. But with this new perspective in terms of rights for animals, I noticed a glaring inconsistency with the way our legal system addresses some examples but not others. 

Now for the hard part. First I want to get a couple things straight. One, what got me caring about it at all was Vick’s place in it, and his sentence is a key point in my argument. Two, in no way do I think what he did was right. However, in terms of animal cruelty, it's worth analyzing the way our governments allow trophy hunting but does not allow dog fighting. One is not inherently better or worse than the other, so there must be some sort of consistency in terms of the legal system. I understand that this argument is going to be controversial, but again, I reiterate that I have grown from my original position and my argument should at least make you think about the way the government deals with animal rights. A violation such as dog fighting should be on the same level as sport hunting, defined as intentionally killing wild animals for enjoyment or fulfillment.   

The main argument against my claim is simply the nature of dog fighting: pitting dogs against each other, with the goal of one killing the other. Wear-and-tear takes value away from the dogs, and sometimes they're executed in gruesome ways. With trophy hunting, the goal is targeting an animal and killing it in as few shots as you can. Some take the head home and put it on a wall, take the antlers as souvenirs, or simply just take a picture with their kill. The one difference between these pastimes is the intention behind the actions; the hunter attempting to get a kill in a single shot, the dogfighter training the dog to kill other dogs. There are obviously some differences, but they both result in death as the final point. My argument hinges on the premise that the cruelty that goes into their deaths (torture being a longer, more sadistic thing) is irrelevant because they both end in death. The intention and action that go into the animal dying eliminates any other circumstances, because they both die. 

As I’m writing this, I think back to a common argument for animal rights: “What if it were you instead of that animal?” I hate that argument, but for the fun of it I’ll play along by offering some legal analogies. The human equivalent of a dog-fighting charge might be assault and battery and negligent homicide, due to the processes that go into the training and the fighting itself and not caring about the dog’s death. But the equivalent for trophy hunting would be murder, premeditated intent to kill. Think about it that way, and think about which carries more severe legal penalties.

There's no way dog fighting should be disdained, let alone legally punished, more than trophy hunting.