South Korea To Legally Recognize Animals as "Sentient Beings"

​worldanimalnews.com/breaking-south-korea-legally-acknowledges-animals-as-sentient-beings-not-objects-in-new-amendment-to-the-civil-act/

South Korea is set to legally recognize animals as "sentient beings" as opposed to objects under the law. This amendment to the Civil Act will improve welfare standards for animals and give them new rights that better protect them. This move comes as companion animals are significantly on the rise throughout the country.

​Recognizing animal sentience is a crucial step in properly protecting animals. Sentience will allot animals stronger protections under the law and their abuse, neglect, and cruelty will be addressed in more serious way. Animal cruelty continues to be a plague on our planet because "things" have very little rights or protections, and therefor there are very few deterrents in committing crimes against animals. Under the law, recognizing animals as "sentient" will be a game-changer for how animal cruelty is tackled in the country.

You can pick "things" up, throw "things", kick and punch "things"...now replace "things with "animals", and it sounds significantly more alarming. Sentience will help the courts address animal cruelty  properly, but also issues sentences that better reflect the nature of the crime committed. I've spoken on this before, but paltry fines or bans on owning animals are not deterrents. We need punishments that can & do include jail sentences for abuse to animals. The law needs to set examples out of those who commit these crimes, otherwise the next arsehole who wants to abuse a cat / dog will do so without regard for any kind of significant punishment.

There's no denying animal sentience, it's simply getting courts across the globe to recognize it as such. The sooner we do so, the sooner we can truly tackle animal abuse, neglect, and cruelty on the scale that it is needed. South Korea has taken the appropriate step to start better protecting animals and that's what's important!

HAPPY VEG