Python Strangles Child, Officials Say

OXFORD, Fla. (July 1) – A pet Burmese python measuring more than 8 feet long broke out of a terrarium and strangled a 2-year-old girl in her bedroom Wednesday at a central Florida home, authorities said. Shaiunna Hare was already dead when paramedics arrived at about 10 a.m., Lt. Bobby Caruthers of the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office said.

I wanted to head this off because it is often a source of confusion — perhaps, more accurately, blatant misrepresentation of the argument for “animal rights.”

There isn’t anything in this discourse that would find moral fault in someone taking the life of a nonhuman animal under these conditions. Self-defense, or secondary self-defense, trumps our ethical obligation to extend to all animals, human and nonhuman, the right to have his or her interests given equal ethical consideration. That’s rational. 

Indeed, I believe humans have this right; however, if I am ever attacked by a human, I will most assuredly do what I must to defend myself. I will take a life if necessary. But this doesn’t belie that fact that I still believe humans have rights.

A better question is this: Why was this animal made a “pet”? That is criminal; we should also find moral fault in this act.