Social media and recent cases of reported animal abuse are playing a central role in helping to further a proposed human hate law in Costa Rica. According to The Tico Times, the bill would mandate six year prison sentences for people convicted of causing the death, suffering or torture of animals. Many interest groups have lined up to oppose the legislation stating the wording of the bill is too vague and could lead to the conviction of people employed in animal-related fields or even when engaged in recreational activities.

The proposed law is mainly geared toward treatment of farm animals, but some party members in Costa Rica’s Congress may even go so far as to ban bull fighting as well. The proposed legislation is said to only criminalize practices considered abusive according to veterinary practices. Fortunately, the country’s Libertarian Party is the main opposition to the bill, in which one high-profile Senator named Otto Guevara has filed numerous motions to amend it. Guevara states that if the bill becomes law it could even criminalize average livestock practices like those used for farming. Apparently, the number of animal abuse cases has gone up in recent months, with Costa Rica’s animal welfare agency reporting an increase in animal abuse cases in addition to the ones reported on social media. They involve the treatment of dogs and even exotic bids, respectfully.

I do not condone animal abuse in the least, but laws are to protect the individual rights of humans since governments are erected by and for them. If this proposed legislation passes without amendment, the simplest acts of physical conduct with animals could be considered a crime, grinding the country’s economy, if not the society of Costa Rica itself, to a halt and resulting in numerous abandoned animals. Proposals like this are an animal rights activist’s wet dream since the vagueness of the law would make it impossible to use animals for any domestic purpose. Hopefully, Costa Rica will either reject or pass an amended version of this proposed bill.

I have interacted with animal rights activists on numerous occasions and the one thing that they claim is the basis for their belief in rights for animals is that they feel pain like humans do. It is a notion borrowed from French philosopher Renee Descartes who at one point said: I feel pain, therefore I have rights. Rights, however, are not based on a being’s ability to feel pain, but on a being’s ability to think. The legal system erected to protect our individual rights, if not civilization in general, is made by and for humans. And it is hatred of humans that is the basis of so-called animal rights groups, like PeTA, and of laws like the one proposed in Costa Rica. Animals are a resource no different than any other on the planet such as coal, oil, natural gas or wood and it is within our rights as humans to exploit animals for our betterment.