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This morning, while walking through Central Park, a hypothetical question popped into mind. It was a question that reaffirmed a controversial position personally embraced of late.
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I imagined myself at a horse auction. A horse has just been purchased by a kill buyer and is about to be loaded onto a trailer bound for a Canadian slaughterhouse.
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I have one -- only one option to save the horse.
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But, it is to put him on another trailer bound for New York City to work as a carriage horse.
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Do I take that option?
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Yes.
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It is a bit serendipity that when returning home and going on Facebook, I came across this posting from Rosemary Farm, the full text under the photo, particularly moving:
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One can only feel for the courageous people in horse rescue who attend auctions and make gut wrenching decisions like these when they can. One wonders what decision they would make if having only the one option described above? I cannot of course answer for them, but guess the answer would be the same as mine -- yes.
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For those who answer "no" to the hypothetical question, one can only wonder.
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Would such position be compatible with a philosophy of Animal Rights or animal justice?
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Perhaps some might answer that it is better to be dead than to live a life of "servitude" or "enslavement."
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But, then why haven't millions of humans actually enslaved and/or tyrannized by war and oppression opted for suicide?
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Personally, I don't believe the carriage horses of Central Park to be enslaved or tyrannized. But, yes, they work like billions of humans. Hopefully, evolving laws, regulations and protocols help to ensure their safety and well being, as they do for human workers.
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I don't believe it is preferable to be dead than to be denied an ideal, utopian life. Few humans or animals (wild or domestic) live fairy tale, non-stressful, non-challenging lives.
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It is the same philosophy that drove when active in dog and cat rescue for so many years and often having to make "death row" decisions to save. One could never be absolutely sure in those circumstances that every animal saved would go on to live a utopian life -- lying by a fireside without a worry or care in the world. We do the best humanly possible that we can do, and believe that where there is life and responsibility, there is hope.
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So yes, bring us the trailer bound for New York City and I pray and trust the horse will know care, love and many moments of pleasure and even joy throughout the remainder of his hopefully long life -- even if much of it is spent clip clopping in front of a carriage through Central Park.. -- PCA
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