My Take | Kabul animal rescues raise moral conundrum
- Are human lives always more valuable than animals, no matter the circumstances? Debate.
A Briton saved 94 dogs, 74 cats and some other animals from an animal shelter he had been operating in Kabul by chartering a private flight, while leaving behind dozens of local staff and their families.
Some US troops were photographed packing their military dogs and even some cats for their flight home while many Afghans who worked for the United States military were unable to escape.
Both incidents have provoked their share of public outrage. Don’t we all agree that humans are more important than animals? I can appreciate the criticism. However, there is, of course, the practical issue of whether they could have got their human comrades out; also, efforts were indeed made to evacuate many local Afghans.
But practicality aside, if I were in their shoes, I would have done exactly the same. Yes, I know human lives are more important, but truth be told, I think I love my own pets more than most of my human friends.
There have been heated online debates about the news; many people thought the rescue and evacuation of those animals from Kabul were the right thing to do. Judging by the prevalence of such discussions online, some of them very sophisticated intellectually, it seems the worth of animals relative to humans is a moral question that haunts many people.
Interestingly, there are two contemporaneous animal stories that have also caused outrage, yet if everyone agreed that humans were more important, they shouldn’t.
