MPs vote that ‘animals can’t feel pain.

Dis86 said:
By subjecting an animal to cruelty and suffering. How can you not grasp that?
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I assumed there were other laws specifically to do with abusing animals. Seems a bit weird to have the law of animal abuse as animals are sentient.

Should we bundle all human abuse laws into one law that says we’re sentient.

It seems like this law has a lot of implicit offenses. Why not just have explicit laws? That prohibit explicit offenses.
 
Mason- said:
I assumed there were other laws specifically to do with abusing animals. Seems a bit weird to have the law of animal abuse as animals are sentient.

Should we bundle all human abuse laws into one law that says we’re sentient.
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It's a fundamental human right that we are not to be subjected to cruel or unusual punishment.
 
Stupid question maybe, but what’s the real world impact of this? Are there other laws that say you can’t do certain things to sentient animals? Is that the worry? That it leaves it open for animals to be sentient for some purposes but not others? It refers to animal testing, so does that mean that a dog is sentient if it’s a pet, so you could get in trouble because some animal cruelty law says you can’t hurt a sentient animal, but if the same dog is in a lab then it’s not sentient so you could similarly injure it i the name of science or something?
 
Is this the law revoked?

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/45/contents

If not it seems they’re comprehensively protected and this is another storm in a teapot.

Really does sound like a silly appeal to emotion article, oh my god mps think animals can’t feel pain! No they probably do they just don’t see how making a law that is essentially a statement and not one that prohibits acts of violence is stupid when we already have laws that protect animal welfare.
 
Had a brief read of the legislation. It defines animal as a vertebrate and says the nature of the law can be extended to invertebrates. And in the first section it says a person commits an offense if they impart suffering on an animal. Fairly sure those parts haven’t been revoked.
 
Dis86 said:
It's a fundamental human right that we are not to be subjected to cruel or unusual punishment.
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I was curious so I googled this... Cruel and unusual is the US constitution wording. The universal declaration of human rights refers to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Close enough, but there’s probably wiggle room to be had on what is unusual vs what is degrading!
 
Mason- said:
Is this the law revoked?

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/45/contents

If not it seems they’re comprehensively protected and this is another storm in a teapot.

Really does sound like a silly appeal to emotion article, oh my god mps think animals can’t feel pain! No they probably do they just don’t see how making a law that is essentially a statement and not one that prohibits acts of violence is stupid when we already have laws that protect animal welfare.
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Read section 58 of that very same act. That seems to be the problem, so far as I can tell. It means MPs are happy to fall back on a law that allows them to say they don’t care if animals feel pain in the name of scientific research.
 
Vonhelmet said:
Read section 58 of that very same act. That seems to be the problem, so far as I can tell.
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Fair enough. I’m not directly opposed to scientific testing on animals though so I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that specific point. The law does fundamentally point out that you commit an offense if you impart “unnecessary suffering”. I think that’s a huge catch all for real, terrible abuse. Rats in a lab? Personally not bothered. You can **** me off for that if you want it’s just my point of view.
 
Mason- said:
Fair enough. I’m not directly opposed to scientific testing on animals though so I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that specific point. The law does fundamentally point out that you commit an offense if you impart “unnecessary suffering”. I think that’s a huge catch all for real, terrible abuse. Rats in a lab? Personally not bothered. You can **** me off for that if you want it’s just my point of view.
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Im speculating a bit to be honest, having figured out what I’ve said from a metro article, which is like reading “My first Newspaper”.
 
Vonhelmet said:
Im speculating a bit to be honest, having figured out what I’ve said from a metro article, which is like reading “My first Newspaper”.
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Agreed. I’m confused by the wording of the article, is there some other EU legislation or is the subject of the article one part of the uk legislation?
 
Dis86 said:
It's a fundamental human right that we are not to be subjected to cruel or unusual punishment.
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Fine. But I’m fairly sure battery/assault/murder/abuse laws were around before human rights and we didn’t repeal those laws when human rights came into effect. It just seems completely pointless and just a way for Caroline Lucas to drum up hate for other MPs and for her to get more support from this nation of animal lovers. Also tinged with a bit of pot stirring from the Remain press. INB4 brexiteers think animals can’t feel pain...

As a side note is the wording for that human right specifically not “cruel punishment”? Seems like a bit of an oxymoron. Punishments wouldn’t be very effective if they weren’t at least slightly cruel.
 
"During a debate in parliament the Government said animal sentience is covered by the Animal Welfare Act 2006."

They voted that we already have laws covering sentience, not that animals can't feel pain. Good headline though, seems to have had the desired effect.
 
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