This is my first post on this site and I am not a regular blogger so please bare with me. I am a college student in Indiana and I am studying Criminal Justice. One of my biggest passions in life are animals and I am currently working on a research paper about animal rights. As I was looking over the laws in each state I found that Indiana is not like most other states. There is no specific law against not providing food, water, shelter, and medical care to pets. I was extremely surprised with my discovery and began doing some more research. I did find that offenders in Indiana were punished for neglect but did not know what the term 'neglect' actually meant. After some more digging I found that these neglect cases were just abandonment. So, are there pets being starved to death or not being provided medical care that are going unnoted because of a glitch in the law? I would hope that the people of Indiana would speak out if a case like this were to occur. I also doubt that a stable person would see this and let it happen; but then again people witness muggings on NewYork streets and keep walking instead of stopping to help so why would they speak up for a helpless animal?
Animal Rights in Indiana.
By laura_5988 - Posted on August 24th, 2009
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For sure animals should be protected by all means of legal laws. If animals are domestic, so the responsiveness of pet behaviour should be on masters. Anyway this points are subject for discussion.
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I disagree with the entire premise that animals have "rights". There is a huge difference between laws that compel humans to act humanely and somehow extending rights to animals. The former is an extension of our existing social contract and the second is some bizarre new social contract made with a group that has no ability to comprehend it.
If animals have rights, from whence did these rights stem? Did the animals fight for them? Are they innate rights that they were born with? Were they given by God? Were they granted by the government? (Rights given by the government can also be taken away. They are more like privileges then rights). What happens if one animal violates another animals rights? Are they to be granted access to our court system for relief? Will we need to provide interpreters? With humans, we consider the most basic rights to be the right to life and the right to liberty. Are animals to be accorded these most basic rights and if not, are there other so-called rights worth a hill of beans? Should all farm animals and pets be emancipated? I could keep on adding to this list of questions for weeks but I imagine you get the point.
All that said, animal cruelty disgusts me. I have no problem with animal husbandry for food production or almost any purpose as long as it does no involve inflicting unnecessary harm and suffering (like dog fighting for sport). I think that it is good for society to compel through the legal system, that people who choose to own animals treat them humanely.
Humane of course is a word with a definition that means different things to different people. The toughest thing about these laws is getting the definition right. It is also difficult to strike a balance between what is humane and people's right to make decisions about their own property. For example, above you mentioned medical treatment. I think most people would agree that it would be disgusting to allow a dog to suffer with a broken leg. But should the owner be compelled to provide what can quickly amount to thousands of dollars veterinary care or are they left with the decision to humanely put the dog down for $50?
If the humane treatment laws in Indiana are inadequate, then perhaps they need to be addressed. There are probably all sorts of ways for you to get involved, I bet there are a lot of animal advocacy groups that are already in place that are aware of these shortfalls. Maybe you should join forces with one or more of these and see how you can help. They usually need volunteers and money. Beware that some of these groups are extremists.
Nice blog!