It was an animal supporter who fought the first case against cruelty to children way back in 1874. Another such activist ended child labour and long working hours. For my part, I head an organisation that rescues and rehabilitates children from the carpet trade. In my constituency, it is the handicapped and the widows, the traditionally discriminated against, who get preferential treatment.

Thus, people who work for animals do not care less about humans. They recognise that violence and cruelty deserve censure, whether with reference to animals or humans. The choice is not animal versus human, but compassion versus apathy, morality versus self interest.

When it comes to human and animal rights, the basic principle is one of equality, implying an equal consideration of interests. Of course, this does not mean that every human right is equally applicable to animals—the basic differences between them indicate diverse interests. However, people who limit moral standards to humans are guilty of the same prejudice and arbitrary discrimination that make racism and sexism objectionable. It is mainly the power to reason that elevates us from the other species on this planet. However, even this does not apply uniformly—infants, the senile, the mentally disabled, serial murderers and criminals cannot claim the awareness and intelligence levels of an elephant, pig or chimpanzee. Thus, to discriminate against human beings solely on account of their species is a form of prejudice as immoral and indefensible as discrimination on the basis of race, caste or gender.

Animals may lack our verbalising ability but their lesser intelligence does not license ill treatment. After all, higher intelligence levels do not entitle one human to use another for his own ends, does it? Biological differences do not justify moral differences.

The EU has recognised animals as sentient beings—beings with the capacity to suffer and experience pleasure. But we do not need official confirmation of this fact. Anyone who has tickled a cat to stretch and purr, stroked a dog, or watched a goat or pig squeal can have no doubt about the animal’s capacity to feel the same emotions as us. We know that they nurse their young and teach them, they play and grieve, they have memories, and a sense of the future. We know that when they face death, they fear it. Yet, while we accept the Darwinian assertion that humans and animals are on the same biological continuum, we resist allowing them on the same moral continuum.

Chimpanzees, the human race’s closest relative, have been maimed and killed for over 50 years because they possess 98 per cent of the same DNA as humans. When it suits science’s purposes, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. We experiment on animals because we realise that their bodies and stress reactions are the same as a human’s. But unfortunately the refrain ‘humans come first’ is more often an excuse for doing nothing about either human or animal suffering.