<p>In <i>More Equal Than Others: Humans and the Rights of Other Animals</i>, Raffael Fasel develops the ‘Species Membership Approach’ (‘SMA’) as an alternative to existing proposals for fundamental rights for animals. His rationale for the need for the SMA takes at face value the concerns of human rights proponents who adopt an Aristocratic Conception of fundamental rights and equality, i.e. believing that preserving the ideal and practice of human equality despite differences among humans in abilities and capacities requires excluding the claims of animals however meritorious. The Aristocratic Conception insists that a human-first mindset is required to prevent harms to vulnerable humans perceived to lack the cognitive capacities that ground equal moral worth and corresponding entitlement to fundamental legal rights. But this approach misses its mark. Excluding nonhuman animals to cultivate and safeguard an equivalent regard for all humans no matter what their capacities is counterproductive. This contribution will discuss how an inferior social and legal position for nonhumans works to marginalize vulnerable humans, not protect or respect them. It points to the symbolic threat of animalization that a hierarchical ordering of human over animal life entails for vulnerable humans. It also points to the material threats created by a human-first mindset, particularly its inability to tackle the multiple and devastating environmental crises that threaten vulnerable humans, as another reason the aristocratic equality model misses its mark. The contribution will conclude that a better way to include animals as non-inferior equals while upholding entitlement to fundamental rights for vulnerable humans is through an interspecies justice model that does not defer to theoretical premises for human-first mindset but rather foregrounds a relational and embodied ethic.</p>