While I don't subscribe to the animal rights philosophy, I do try to put my own philosophy of animal rights into practice with the animals I come into contact. I don't hunt, and I wouldn't kill or harm animals unless they threatened me or invaded my home. I'm not much of a meat eater, but I do eat fish. And (gasp) I actually enjoy fishing from time to time! Whether a fish is the type of animal which could even arguably be said to have rights is a good question, I suppose. Are insects? Some think so, but I don't think too many people weigh the pros and cons of treating a maggot-infested wound. (Not sure about the rights of the hepatitis virus.)

But I think "animal rights" is a misnomer, as no serious person contends that animals on an individual basis have a right to life. And if they don't have a right to life, then they have no right to reproduce.

In fact, the animal rights activists claim that certain animals must be prevented from reproduction by means of sterilization procedures. Performed upon them by humans, of course. How anyone can call this a "right" is beyond me. Certainly it is not "natural" to remove an animal's reproductive organs. (I'm not saying this should not be done; only that doing it in the name of "rights" strikes me as perverse.)

I love my dog Coco, and I don't want to remove her ovaries. Similarly, I did not want to remove Puff's testicles. (Something I never did.) And it caused me great emotional pain and anguish to have a hand in ending that lovely animal's life. (I'm still not over it.) So, where it comes down to individual animals that I love, I do try to respect their natural rights as best as I can perceive them. Do unto others?

Yet the animal "rights" people want to have things done things to my animals which they would never voluntarily choose for themselves, nor would the one human being who loves them. This seems manifestly cruel to both the animals and their loving care giver.

The thinking that would justify enforced removal of my dog's sex organs is that she has no right to reproduce. Again, the opposite of a right. But to follow this thinking out, it is based on the idea that there are "too many" dogs, and that therefore Coco should not have puppies. Excuse me, but did anyone consult Coco or her ancestors? How many dogs is too many? According to what I've been reading, dog "overpopulation" is a myth, but even if we assume it's true, suppose for the sake of argument that I had twelve friends who liked Coco so much that they wanted her puppies, and only her puppies? Suppose one of them had another dog who wanted to breed with Coco when she was in heat. And suppose that I allowed that to happen. I'd be accused of a monstrous moral crime: dog breeding! Why? Because there are already too many dogs. So (if I can follow the logic), Coco having puppies is a crime against what? Dogs? But dogs are unnatural creatures bred by man so they shouldn't be there in the first place. So the crime is against what? Other animals? Do they know? Or is it that Coco would be "used" in a continuation of man's plot against "nature"?

Excuse me, but who gets to decide these things for me and Coco? It's quite obvious to me that "animal rights" like these are not rights at all -- either for animals or humans. They are the very antithesis. They are someone's idea of what is best -- not for an individual animal, but for some vaguely defined idea of "animals."

"Animal rights" is, simply, communitarian logic applied in an anthropomorphic manner to animals. (Actually, the word "anthropomorphic" is a bit scary in this context, as it reminds me of applying similar logic to nonconsenting humans. Well? Aren't there "too many" "unwanted" people?)

Again, my point is not to argue the merits of dog sterilization or euthanasia. I'd be a hypocrite to claim there's no right to do these things to dogs, even if I don't want them done to mine. (Otherwise, I should want to stop the slaughter of cattle for food too -- which I don't.) What bothers me is to do these things in the name of "animal rights."

The phrase is a misnomer of Orwellian proportions.

MORE: The nature of the fallacy here can further be illustrated by a simple question: why can't involuntary sterilization and euthanasia of the unwanted be done to humans?

The answer, obviously, is because of a thing called human rights.

What, there's a problem with rights?