How important is animal life to you?

[anna]

Nice Guy Wrote in a previous question: “Matt has basically stated that animals are equally important as humans. I'm sorry, but no animals life has as much importance or relevance as that of a human. For one to think that an animals life is just as important as his own is absurd. Can anyone possibly believe that the life of a pig, cow, or chicken can even compare to the life of a human being?”

How do you feel about this? Does an animal's interest in living have any weight in our deciding how we treat said animal? How is an animal's interest in continued existence qualitatively any different than our own?

[jaki]

I recently saw pictures of a Hurricane Katrina animal rescue. I saw houses that were destroyed, and next to the house, would be a dog, tied to a steak.... It made me SICK. Thinking of it now brings up so much anger in me. What kind of depraved person would do that. It was not as though there were seconds left, and they were going to be beamed out by Scottie in immediately. There was a long, slow evacuation process, and they left those animals to slowly die.

If your house is burning down, you try to save your animals. I will say though, that you save your children first. But you bring an animal into your house and under your protection, you better care for it.