Animals in Denmark Have 'Rights'

Denmark recently announced a ban on halal and kosher slaughter practices.  While at first glance this may appear as an attack on religious rights, it is far more stupid and far more open to mockery.  Apparently, European Union regulations require that all animals be stunned before slaughter, but exemptions for religious practices are allowed.  Kosher and halal practice requires that animals be conscious before slaughter.

In case you are wondering, no, I'm not religious.  Nor am I opposed to any regulation that will protect animals from needless suffering.  What I am opposed to is the absurdity of the rationale behind the ban.

According to Denmark's Minister of Agriculture, Dan Jorgensen, "animal rights come before religion."  

This is an infuriating and insulting statement - insulting to anyone who believes that animals have rights and to the very notion of rights themselves.  If humans choose to eat animals, ethics demand that we ensure their lives and deaths be as free from suffering as possible.  That belief is based on ethics - not rights.

Consider the logic...A cow has the right(?) to be rendered unconscious before it is killed on an industrial assembly line, sliced up into pieces,  packaged for delivery to stores, and eaten.

Extend the logic to humans by substituting any horrific scenario from human history and tell me that's a right.  If animals had rights, one of the first one they would claim is the right NOT TO BE KILLED.

Hey!!!  Don't forget that I have the 'RIGHT' to be smacked in the head before you kill me.