Why should society care about animal rights when human rights are still incomplete?

This is a justice question, not a competition. Sor Juana knew that systems of oppression don't work in isolation—they're connected. When we decide that some beings don't deserve moral consideration because of what they are (their species, their appearance, their usefulness to us), we're practicing the same logic that's been used against marginalized humans. Not identical situations, but the same *structure* of thinking. Systemic equity isn't a zero-sum game where helping animals means abandoning people. Both matter. A society that's learned to see the suffering of those unlike itself—whether animals or distant humans—is a society building muscles for justice. That said, urgency matters. If a child is drowning, you save the child first. But you don't then ignore the reason people keep drowning. Animal welfare and human justice aren't competing for the same oxygen; they're different expressions of the same question: What do we owe to beings vulnerable to our power? Sor Juana argued for intellectual expansion—for widening our circles of moral concern. She believed that a mind trained to see injustice in one place sees it everywhere. Start where you can. Act where you have leverage. The point isn't to become a perfect advocate for everything. It's to recognize that suffering deserves consideration, wherever you find it.