© Alexey StoydaHere’s an odd, possibly provocative question: Has an intimate part of your body ever been touched, or have you ever been caused some pain by, a doctor or nurse? For most of us, the answer is yes.[teaserbreak]
Second question: Should medical professionals be exempted from the laws against sexual or physical assault?
For most of us, the answer is no.
We recognize that, in the performance of necessary procedures, a caregiver may have to take liberties or cause pain that would not otherwise be legally acceptable. They may have to cut us open, inject foreign substances, and so on, as deemed necessary within their professional duties. That does not give them liberties to do those things unnecessarily.
“Necessity” is the key consideration.
When federal Bill C-246, The Modernizing Animal Protections Act, was tabled in the Canadian parliament last spring, it was just one of a long list of such bills presented over the last 17 years by various governments, all going down to defeat. I won’t go into the complexities of Canadian governance, but suffice it to say that Bill C-246 faces the same challenges. It would ban the import of cat and dog fur, dog fighting, bestiality, and import of shark fins—all actions the huge majority of Canadians would strongly support, but it would also make the unnecessary abuse of any animal a criminal offense.
Put simply, the concern is always the same. While such animal-use industries as farming, furs, hunting, research, and entertainment claim that they would never impose unnecessary suffering on animals, they oppose efforts to hold them to the same standards as the rest of us.
Their position is thereby similar to what health care professionals’ would be in claiming that, because they sometimes have to hurt a patient, or touch a private area on a patient’s body, they should therefore be exempt from the criminal code in matters of assault, sexual or otherwise. That’s nonsense.
That’s the sticking point we are aware of that has led the Prime Minister to order his caucus to vote against Bill C-246.
But, I suspect that there is another one. The government is indicating, in an informally back-channel sort of way, a willingness to consider some of the other provisions in the current iteration of Bill C-246 (such as the shark fin ban or the ban on cat and dog fur).
I just don’t trust them. Canada has an abysmal track record on issues of animal abuse, and I believe that the government would not ban a product from another country for fear of fueling other countries’ bans on Canadian products (like those from harp seals, old-growth timber, or oil from Alberta’s tar sands).
Of course, I’d love—dearly love—to be proven wrong.
Keep wildlife in the wild,
Barry