Why do they have to participate in our society in order to be protected from torture/murder/slavery/etc? The point of this article is that they have their own society and should not be made our playthings.
I'm also not sure why they would need to agree to some kind of treaty with humans just to be spared our cruelty. There's no evidence they mean us harm, we have the ability to protect ourselves if they did, let's just leave them alone.
Why do they have to participate in our society in order to be protected from torture/murder/slavery/etc?
That's a strawman. The proposal was to give Dolphins "the same rights as humans".
Protection of the creatures from hunting and physical exploitation is sufficient and something normally agreed to through international treaties. Equating cetaceans with humans is unnecessary and illogical.
No, the proposal is to give cetaceans the rights of life and liberty. Humans have quite a few other rights. Animals have no rights whatsoever.
The proposal is not equating humans and cetaceans. It is stating that cetaceans are close enough to humans that we should respect their life and not treat them a property. One hopes that an alien species landing on Earth would feel the same about humans...
