| > Taken to its logical conclusion, "Animals to be formally recognised as sentient beings" should outlaw their slaughter for food or other products and much more essentially including whatever rights humans have. If I understand the article correctly the new law recognises (some) animals as sentient, not as humans. I can't see how "sentient" automatically means "has human rights". In any case, I bet UK laws, those that are actually written down anyway, are written so as to grant rights to categories more strict than "sentient". For example, wikipedia says that in Common English Law, "murder" is the killing of one "person" by another: > Murder is an offence under the common law of England and Wales. It is considered the most serious form of homicide, in which one person kills another with the intention to cause either death or serious injury unlawfully. In fact, from this definition it seems like "murder" is a kind of "homicide". So it seems that not only the perpetrator and the victim must be "person"s, they also must be "human" (species homo?). tl;dr, I don't think "sentient beings" are currently extended the same protections in law as "humans" or "person"s and so slaughtering them for food is not prohibited by any laws (and therefore, is allowed). |