Animal cruelty and neglect are illegal, but courts across the nation see animals as property. According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), this can make protecting animals extremely difficult. Even if someone is charged with the crime of animal cruelty or neglect, the person’s rights are still prioritized over the animal’s rights.

When it comes to our moral and legal obligations to nonhuman animals, we suffer from “moral schizophrenia.” We claim to recognize that animals have morally significant interests in not suffering and that it is morally wrong to inflict “unnecessary” suffering on animals. Although we have laws that purport to reflect these moral sentiments, the overwhelming portion of the pain, suffering, and death that we impose on animals cannot be regarded as necessary in any sense. Our moral schizophrenia is related to the status of animals as property, which means that, as a practical matter, animal suffering will be regarded as necessary whenever it benefits human property owners. If we really are to take animal interests seriously, we can no longer treat animals as human resources. This does not mean that we must give animals the rights that we accord to humans, or that we cannot choose human interests over animal interests in situations of genuine conflict. Rather, we must recognize that ANIMALS HAVE ONE RIGHT--THE RIGHT NOT TO BE TREATED AS PROPERTY, and we cannot create conflicts between human and animals by using animals in ways in which we would never use any humans. As long as animals are human property, the principle of equal consideration can never apply to them (just as it could not apply to slaves), and animals will necessarily remain as nothing more than things that possess no morally significant interests

According to the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, states cannot deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. This means law enforcement officers cannot permanently take someone’s pet away from them until they are formally charged and convicted of a crime. 

Still, many complaints of animal abuse or neglect are not taken seriously because the courts see animals as property – not as people.

We need to change this