3 posts tagged “pet overpopulation”

ISAR is pleased to announce that its new monograph, ISAR’s Revolutionary Model Mandatory Spay/Neuter Statute is now available at its website, http://www.isaronline.org/, under Site Map/LAW/Monographs. (See our blog of Wednesday, July 2, 2008, for the Table of Contents). We encourage constructive comments.

Counting the six appendices—which provide extensive bibliographies of books, articles and statutes relating to mandatory spay/neuter, legal cases directly and indirectly on that subject, and a lengthy resource explaining the legislative process generally and how animal advocates can use it to achieve their goals—the monograph is 125 pages long. Interested persons are encouraged to download and/or print it, and they may reproduce the monograph in accordance with the permission conditions that appear on the copyright page.

The Introduction explains the context in which the monograph has been written, which is that mandatory spay/neuter “laws must be grounded not in hope, sentiment, or a benevolent opinion of mankind, but rather in the world as we find it—a real world where companion animals are too often thought of as virtually inanimate objects, mere property to be used and abused by humans.”

Part A, “The Policy Component of the Companion Animal Overpopulation Problem,” establishes the foundation premises upon which rest the remainder of the monograph: that there is today a huge national problem of companion animal overpopulation (Chapter I), that at present the only way to ameliorate it is through spay/neuter (Chapter II), and that these medical procedures must be made mandatory (Chapter III).

Part B, “The Legal Component of the Companion Animal Overpopulation Problem,” is necessarily the next consideration because if spay/neuter is to be mandatory, statutes of state-wide application will have to be enacted. To understand fully ISAR’s Revolutionary Model Mandatory Spay/Neuter Statute and the philosophy that underlies it, an analysis is necessary of existing spay/neuter statutes (Chapter IV). Only against that background can ISAR’s model statute be understood and appreciated (Chapter V). Once one is talking statutes, inevitably the question of constitutionality or unconstitutionality arises, a crucial consideration for mandatory spay/neuter legislation (Chapter VI). Finally, once the constitutional hurdle is surmounted, other related issues arise (Chapter VII): For purposes of enforcement and otherwise, how to identify all companion animals; low-cost spay/neuter for the indigent; early-age spay/neuter; Departments of Animal Affairs.

Part C, “The Legislative Component of the Companion Animal Overpopulation Problem,” reveals how even the worst alleged “mandatory spay/neuter” statutes can be subverted by politicians, as recently occurred in California (Chapter VIII). As an antidote to fruitless lobbying and craven legislators, ISAR presents a powerful resource for animal advocates who seek to maximize their chance of getting legislation introduced and enacted (Chapter IX).

Part D, “Morality and Spay Neuter” (Chapter X) makes the case that animal protection, and mandatory spay/neuter as one element in accomplishing that task, is at root a moral issue. The chapter concludes with the thought that “[a]s ISAR’s national billboards beseech the public: “Spay/Neuter: It Reduces the Killing.”