“This boy is Ignorance, this girl is Want ... Beware them both, but above all beware this boy!”

Thus says the Ghost of Christmas Present in Charles Dickens’ beloved classic, “A Christmas Carol,” as he warns the hardened Ebenezer Scrooge about the offspring of our own deeply flawed species.

For many years, state Rep. Diana Urban, D-Stonington, has battled those minions of Ignorance and Want. In her time serving in the state legislature, Urban has served as a powerful champion for abused children, neglected elders, abandoned veterans, mistreated homeless or helpless animals. The Animal Legal Defense Fund has declared her “one of the top 10 defenders of animals in the country.”

Urban found cause to speak out on behalf of her fellow living creatures long before it was safe or acceptable to do so.

“As a child I grew up with parents who made a life commitment of taking care of animals,” she said during a recent interview at Bartleby’s Coffee House in Mystic. “During those early years, I guess you could say I was ‘horse crazy,’ seeing how from the age of 12, I rode all the time. And from those days, a bond was formed that would last a lifetime.”

That bond, born of compassion and affection — a natural inner sense of understanding between sentient beings — would set in motion a life’s passion for commitment to the decent treatment of all our fellow creatures. Urban believes those years on her parents’ dairy farm, where caring constantly for the well-being of animals, gave rise to the origins of her empathy for all living beings.

It would one day find its way into a revolutionary legislative movement.

Her tenure in Connecticut’s General Assembly was made noteworthy by the introduction of bills that demanded decency of those who often declare our own species the bearers of the moral highground … though a multitude of blemishes in human behavior over the ages belies such claims. Given how humans have a propensity for mistreatment of one another, let alone animals too, Urban proved to be a veritable pioneer in linking a connection between child abuse and foul treatment of domestic pets.

As with anyone introducing an original idea or concept, she was opposed — even ridiculed — by others. But time, persistence, and resolve on Urban’s part won out — resulting in powerful new legislation that recognized clear and evidentiary conclusions: those guilty of spousal and child abuse had often used animals as a cruel preliminary for a behavioral descent into social deviancy.

Diana Urban spent nearly 20 years in the Connecticut legislature, convincing Assembly colleagues of the need to identify and ultimately convict the more malevolent members of mankind, and to do so before their fetish for cruelty expanded to serial proportions.

“From early on in our lives we make the choice whether we will treat our fellow inhabitants of this planet with kindness... or with cruelty,” she said.

Urban reflected back on the choices she made during her childhood years while experiencing a near spiritual exchange with her first equine companion on her parents’ small dairy farm. Now, as she prepares to exit the legislature, Urban prepares for the next phase of her lifelong commitment by seeking to spread the law she introduced here in Connecticut to every state in the union: Desmond’s Law.

“California is next,” she said assuredly.

With groundwork being done by a burgeoning movement that mobilized due to the horrific treatment of a Pit Bull mix named Desmond, The dog had been badly mistreated by an abused woman’s boyfriend, Alex Wullaert, and when she gave up her pet to a shelter in order to protect it, Wullaert tracked the animal down and duped the personnel there into turning it over to him for adoption, hoodwinking them into believing he was someone else and accepting him as one who might offer the dog a more kindly home.

The horrific treatment of the animal that followed is unfit for description, and Desmond died of his wounds. Two activists, Christine Kiernan and Robin Cannamela, responded to this grim saga by mustering together a veritable “army” in the name of the tortured canine, and in his memory came Desmond’s Army.

They vowed that thereafter, abusers like Alex Wullaert would pay dearly for their crimes.

Thus was a movement in the name of justice for our fellow creatures formed. What they needed next was someone in power to champion their cause. Enter Diana Urban.

Gathering together every fiber of conviction and moral commitment she had ever held dear, Urban wove the very fabric of decency that Desmond’s Law demanded of our elected officials and made a compelling plea. She elicited from the legislature the means of fulfilling that vow made by Kiernan, Cannamela and their legion of dedicated supporters.

For the first time, abused animals were actually to be represented by pro bono prosecuting attorneys, originally law students under the supervision of University of Connecticut law professor Jessica Rubin, and later on, also including practicing professionals in the field of law. In essence — for those who might be “Law & Order” buffs — through Desmond’s Law, abused animals are now afforded their own Jack McCoy to speak on their behalf in our courts.

The outcome has been staggering. As Urban proudly declares, “Not only are our mistreated and savagely abused fellow creatures finally having their proverbial day in court, the criminals committing these heinous acts are finally being punished for their inhumane behavior.”

Having already served as torch bearer for the principles that have driven Desmond’s Law into a humane movement for justice here in Connecticut, Urban has served notice that upon retiring from the legislature, she will continue as standard bearer for a cause demanding decent treatment of all living creatures until every state validates the need for the compassion and sense of justice long denied them.

In truth, it all goes back to those early days when a 12-year-old girl caring for her equine companion recognized not only a bond of warmth existing between humans and animals, but that it is also what defines our very sense of humanity.