On the Side of the Angels

As a fervent believer in animal rights, a fervent abhorrer of cruelty to animals in any form, a friend of mine is sympathetic to persons who break into laboratories in which experiments are being conducted on animals, and to those who, on seeing someone in a fur coat, feel no compunctions about spray-painting it. He points out that creatures whose fur is made into coats are treated horrifically, that ranch-raised foxes are crammed into tiny cages and minks into even tiner ones, where they live in misery until killed by anal or vaginal electrocution. In the wild, non-farmed animals whose fur is coveted can languish in traps for days, during which mny try to escape by chewing off their own feet. My friend believes that this is, in the literal sense, absolutely intolerable, and must be stopped by any means necessary.

Scott Roeder was no less sincere or fervent in his belief that it was morally incumbent on him to assassinate abortion doctor George Tiller. Where I, in an abortion doctor, see someone empowering women to make their own reproductive choices, others quite clearly see a murderer.

In the case of those who break into laboratories in which animal experimentation take place, or who spray-paint fur coats, we are dealing with persons who believe themselves without a trace of doubt to be on the side of the angels. In the case of those who assassinate workers at abortion clinics, on the other hand, we are dealing with persons who believe themselves without a trace of doubt to be on the side of the angels.

And in the author, you are dealing with one who believes without a trace of doubt that no one in our society, strictly on the basis of his or her fervent and sincere belief, strictly on the basis of being sure he or he has heard God’s voice, should be able to harm another’s person or property. I want to live in a society of law, even if some of it badly needs changing, rather than a society in which anyone convinced of his own rectitude gets to break into my place of business or even shoot me.

A CNN special about the writings of Martin Luther King Jr., whom I regard as the greatest of our heroes, pointed out that he was emboldened to defy American apartheid because he felt God’s presence. My friend challenged me to explain why King got to break the law while animal rights extremists do not. In the first place, King didn’t get to break the law with impunity, in the sense that he was imprisoned over and over again. In the second place, he destroyed no property, directly jeopardized no one’s well being. You might validly note that the Birmingham bus boycott threatened the livelihood of the bus company’s employees. But not patronizing segregated buses was very different, I assert, from smashing up someone’s laboratory or “liberating” a poultry farmer’s hens.

I personally think there’s something pathological about hunting for sport. Let’s go out into the wild and kill something! In Wisconsin, where I lived briefly, deer hunters justify their blood lust by saying it helps to control the deer population. My friend points out in response that nature would have taken care of that on its own if man hadn’t essentially eradicated the wolves. Be that as it may, I am struck by this thought. If it’s the deer for which you’re concerned, wouldn’t you sooner it be killed by a hunter’s bullet (or bullets, assuming the first one only wounds) than by a wolf ripping its throat out? In cases such as this I see my friend as less interested in sparing the animal anguish than in condemning the human.

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