The best foundation for animal welfare is human exceptionalism.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with the Point.

Cambridge University has established Europe's first center devoted to studying and promoting animal rights law.

The academics in charge say they'll focus on questions like whether animals should be farmed, used for testing, caught, killed, kept in zoos.

According to the L.A. Times, it's part of a growing push to designate some animals

as non-human persons, with legal rights to life, liberty, even property. Now, this would

be bad for both humans and animals. Why? Well, because the concept of rights come from

Christianity's doctrine that people are made in the image of God. Likewise, animal welfare,

which is different than animal rights, was pioneered by Christians

like William Wilberforce who saw humans as stewards of creation.

But if we're just animals, like the concept of non-human person implies, there's no reason

we should be kind to or respect other animals.

And that means human rights and animal welfare become nonsense.

And things get a lot hairier for the both of us.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with the point.