A n i m
a l W r i t e s © sm
The
official ANIMAL RIGHTS ONLINE newsletter
Publisher ~ EnglandGal@aol.com
Issue # 11/07/01
Editor ~ JJswans@aol.com
Journalists ~ Park StRanger@aol.com
~
MichelleRivera1@aol.com
~ sbest1@elp.rr.com
THE TWO ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE ARE:
1 ~ Animal Welfare Or Animal Rights?
Dismantling a False Opposition
by Dr. Steve Best
2 ~ Memorable Quote
*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»«:*´`*´`³¤³´`*:»«:*´³¤³´`*:»³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`´`*:»«:*³¤³´`³¤³´`³¤³´`*:»³¤³´`
~1~
Animal Welfare Or Animal Rights?
Dismantling a False Opposition
By Dr. Steve Best - sbest1@elp.rr.com
It
is vividly evident that our society is in the process of dramatically changing
its views toward animals. The signs are everywhere. The behaviorist
doctrine that animals don’t have complex minds and feelings has been refuted
through an avalanche of scientific studies and groundbreaking research, leading
to a revolution in the way people think about both them and us. “Animals
Rights and the Law” courses are being taught at prestigious universities such
as Harvard. One prominent professor who teaches the Harvard course,
Steven Wise, received national attention last year and was widely interviewed
on radio and TV. Rutgers University created the nation’s first center to
teach animal rights law and prepare lawyers to defend the interests of nonhuman
species (see http://www.animal-law.org/).
Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation, now holds a chair of bioethics
at Princeton University, as other professors hold academic chairs in animal
welfare throughout the world. Anew field of “Animal Studies” is emerging
in academia to take its place side-by-side with African-American, Chicano, Gay
and Lesbian, Women’s, and Environmental Studies, thus introducing countless
students to a new consciousness. Journals such as Animal Issues, Society
and Animals, and Between the Species have emerged, along with
various conferences, to offer forums for the exchange of ideas. Using the
materials written and collected by philosopher Tom Regan, North Carolina State
University created the first animal rights annals ever included in a
university’s permanent document collection.
Across the country, there is a movement to upgrade abuse of domestic animals
from a mere misdemeanor to a felony crime – a law that just went into effect in
Texas in September 2001. In 1999, President Clinton signed into law
legislation banning “crush videos” (featuring women in spiked heels crushing a small
animal to death) that set a penalty of up to five years in prison for anyone
profiting from interstate sale of depictions of animal cruelty, thereby
elevating animal abuse concerns to the presidential level. Books such as
Gail Eisnitz’s Slaughterhouse (1997) have thrown a national spotlight on
the horrifying suffering animals undergo on their way to the human dinner
plate. In May 2000, using footage shot with a hidden camera by the Humane
Farming Association, Seattle’s King TV station and king5.com site featured
graphic evidence of animals being dismembered while still conscious. This
gruesome evil violates the Humane Slaughter Act passed in Congress in 1958,
which requires that an animal be unconscious before being killed. In April
2001, The Washington Post wrote a powerful two-part expose – “They Die,
Piece By Piece” -- about illegal slaughterhouse horrors.
In October 2000, in response to intense pressure from animal rights activists,
the USDA agreed to expand its biomedical regulations to include mice, rats and
birds for the first time – although this was sharply contested by the
vivisection industry and is still pending. At the same time, the European
Commission announced they would end the use of battery cages – endless rows of
cramped enclosures used to maximally exploit egg production – by 2012. A
critical mass of change was reached in October 2001 as the U.S. House of
Representatives passed four animal protection amendments to H.R. 2646, The Farm
Security Act of 2001. These amendments – awaiting a vote by the Senate –
would prohibit stockyards and other markets from transferring and selling
downed animals who cannot walk because of illness or injury; close the loophole
that allows interstate shipment of fighting birds from states where it is illegal
to any of the three states (including New Mexico) where it is still legal; ban
the export of fighting birds and dogs and increase penalties for violating
sections of the Animal Welfare Act; and strongly enforce the Humane Slaughter
Act.
In July 2001, Senator Joseph Byrd gave an unprecedented speech on the Senate
floor that eloquently and passionately defended the value of all animals from
the evils of human abusers, as he even condemned “our inhumane treatment of
livestock" in the strongest terms and galvanized the Senate to approve $3
million for the Department of Agriculture to bolster enforcement of humane
slaughter laws and research ways to lessen animal suffering. In the words
of Wayne Pacelle, vice president of the Humane Society of the United States,
“Never has a senator taken to the floor like this, and nobody of his stature
has ever said these things.”
These are only some of the indicators that we are in the midst of a collective
paradigm shift, one that no longer views animals as dumb beasts or insensate
objects for human use, but rather as thinking and feeling beings whose
interests are morally significant. Clearly, we have a long way to go until the
sundry and sordid forms of violence against animals stops. Abominations
such as circuses, rodeos, zoos, hunting, vivisection, and slaughterhouses
persist. Every year in the U.S. alone, 40 million animals are trapped,
gassed, clubbed, and electrocuted for their fur; up to 100 million die in
experimental laboratories, and nearly 10 billion animals are killed for meat
consumption. Human ignorance and insensitivity toward animals is not
about to become obsolete anytime soon.
So we live within a conflicted and uneven situation where ancient prejudices
against animals persist, but change and moral progress is nonetheless
evident. Some of the most significant changes relate to the treatment of
farm animals. In August, 2000, McDonald’s wrote the farmers who supply them
with 1.5 billion eggs yearly that they must begin treating the hens more
humanely, and they outlined strict new regulations for raising hens. The
guidelines require 50% more space for each caged hen, banned the practice of
“forced molting” that withholds food and water to stimulate egg production, and
required a phasing out of the barbaric “debeaking” process that cuts the beaks
of baby chicks off to prevent destructive pecking within the cramped battery
cages. Further, McDonald’s told the egg companies that it will audit them
to ensure compliance. The same year, United Egg Producers announced they
would phase out forced molting – a cruel practice that starves hens for up to
two weeks to trick their bodies into another laying cycle -- and the American
Humane Association initiated a Free Farmed certificate program that would award
labels to companies that met AHA welfare standards. In 2001, following
the lead of McDonald’s both Burger King and Wendy’s announced that they too
would use bigger cages for laying hens and stop forced molting.
PETA Power
In
the case of McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s, the astute person realizes
that they did not make these changes voluntarily, but rather were dragged
kicking and screaming to the bargaining table and only made concessions when
their public image was sufficiently bruised. Specifically, PETA was the
leading force in coercing all three fast food giants into reforming the
unconscionable practices of their suppliers. While a number of PETA
campaigns have proved unpopular with both the media and the animal rights
community – such as their “Got Beer?” and “Eat the Whales” fiascoes – there is
no question they are often highly effective in defending animal rights, such as
evident in their recent attacks on fast food chains.
PETA’s campaign against the Big 3 began in July 1997 when they wrote to the CEO
of McDonald’s and demanded significant reforms in their treatment of farm
animals. PETA’s strike followed on the heels of an 80 page verdict by
Chief Justice Roger Bell of the British High Court in London during the famous
“McLibel” trial that found McDonald’s “culpably responsible” for cruelties in
the raising of broiler chickens, laying hens, and pigs (see http://www.mcspotlight.org/case/index.html).
The abominations inflicted on animals raised for McDonald’s -- standard
practices for modern factory farms and slaughterhouses – include: chickens
crammed into cages inside filthy warehouses, with each bird having less space
to stand than a standard size sheet of paper and suffering injuries and broken
bones when grabbed for slaughter; pigs raised in cement stalls so small they
can not turn around; and inadequate stunning at the slaughterhouse such that at
least 1 in 20 animals are dismembered while fully conscious.
With Ray Kroc’s Evil Empire on the ropes, PETA seized the initiative and began
making demands on McDonald’s to significantly improve their treatment of farm
animals. PETA demanded that McDonald’s: (1) meet minimum standards
recommended by the USDA and provide chickens at least one and one-half square
feet of living space; (2) cease selling eggs from factory-farmed hens; (3)
mandate improved standards for chicken transport and slaughter; (4) abolish the
use of genetically altered birds that suffer painful leg deformities; (5) buy
pigs only from farms that do not confine them in cramped cement stalls and
provide breeding sows with room to move around outdoors; (6) Stop buying from
suppliers who debeak hens; (7) ensure that animals are properly stunned before
being killed; (8) humanely euthanize “downer” animals who arrive at the
slaughterhouse severely injured, rather than tossing them into a “dead pile” to
be processed into food with the other animals; and (9) include a vegetarian
burger at all U.S. restaurants.
For two frustrating years PETA was involved in constant negotiations with
McDonald’s by way of letters, phone calls, and appearances at their shareholder
meetings. They worked with Dr. Temple Grandin, a noted expert in
ameliorating the suffering of factory farmed animals, who suggested McDonald’s
suppliers slow down the speed of the killing line, have two people stunning the
animals to insure they are unconscious before slaughter, and implement
unannounced audits of their suppliers. PETA gave McDonald’s every
opportunity to become a leading force in addressing animal welfare issues, but
after seeing no commitment to major reform and sensing that McDonald’s was
interested only in staging a public relations ploy, PETA unleashed a full-scale
assault on the company on August 12, 1999. PETA organized 400
demonstrations in 23 countries and over 300 cities. They distributed
leaflets, posters, and stickers, with graphic pictures of slaughtered animals
and biting parodies of McDonald’s slogan such as “Animals Deserve a Break
Today” and “McDonalds. Cruelty to go.” Most provocatively, at schools across
the globe PETA passed out “Unhappy Meals” –colorful cardboard lunch boxes
containing information about how animals are raised and slaughtered. PETA made
it vividly clear that McDonald’s -- a company with $36 billion dollars in gross
annual revenues! -- did not care enough about animals to alleviate their
unimaginable sufferings by any measure or, indeed, to obey the “humane
slaughter” law.
In June 2000, PETA acknowledged McDonald’s had made some improvements in terms
of better cattle stunning, handling of chickens, and implementation of audits,
but had still not addressed most of the problems raised by Justice Bell’s
critique and their own demands. In August 2000, however, McDonald’s
agreed to stop buying poultry products from suppliers that debeak chickens,
provide less than 72 square inches per bird, and uses forced molting to
increase egg production. PETA applauded this measure but held out for
more reforms and continued their campaign. Finally, in September 2000,
McDonald’s committed to more substantive reforms: they increased the cage size
of laying hens, eliminated debeaking, ceased forced molting, called for more
humane methods of catching chickens, and began to audit slaughterhouses and cut
off suppliers who do not comply with “humane slaughter” standards.
Consequently, PETA announced a two-year moratorium on all protests against
McDonald’s. While commending them on the steps taken, PETA insisted much
more needed to be done, and they outlined additional needed reforms such as
refusing purchases from farms that confine sows, selling only free range
chickens, improving slaughtering methods, and rigorously upgrading
slaughterhouse inspections. If their demands are not met by September 1,
2002, PETA vowed to renew their campaign, Unhappy Meals and all.
After their declared “victory” with McDonald’s, who was setting industry
standards for others to follow, PETA next set Burger King and Wendy’s in their
crosshairs. They made the same demands and achieved the same results.
Importantly, Burger King and Wendy’s have also agreed to announce inspections
of their suppliers and to sever ties with any found in violation of legal
standards. As the goal of each campaign took increasingly less time and effort
to realize, it is clear that PETA has become a force to reckon with and a major
vehicle of reform in the food industry. They presently are encouraging McDonald’s
to internationalize their U.S. standards, and are choosing their next targets,
which likely will include additional fast-food chains such as chicken and pizza
outlets, as well as major stores such as Wal-Mart and Albertson’s.
Victories or Betrayals?
After three successive campaigns against the fast food giants, PETA claimed a
series of “victories” that promoted reforms in the ways farm animals are
confined, treated, shipped, and slaughtered. All three claimed that they
made the changes on their own will and conscience, and that PETA played no part
in their decision, but the evidence of PETA’s leading role is documented in
their letters with the companies and it is clear none of them would have made
reforms if not for the constant pressure and publicity nightmare PETA inflicted
on them. No other animal rights group played as active a role in the
changes.
But the “victories” won by PETA re-ignited a long-standing debate within the
animal rights community between those advocating improved “animal welfare” and
those urging “animal rights” and the abolition of the animal exploitation
industries. What on earth, one might well ask, is the world’s leading
animal rights group doing helping industries to refine their methods of raising
and killing animals, when PETA should be working instead to shut them
down? Instead of demanding bigger cages, isn’t the goal the abolition of
cages? Are PETA “sell-outs,” “backstabbers,” and lousy “reformists” who
have betrayed the nature of animal rights, as their critics have claimed, or
are their opponents aloof purists, prisoners to principles, who would block
immediate reforms to reduce animal suffering for distant and perhaps
unrealizable goals of “animal liberation” and a predominantly vegan world.
Has PETA legitimated meat industries and meat eating by putting their seal of
approval on animal products, assuaging what little guilt existed in the
carnivorous public, or have they made gains no other organization has yet been
able to realize? Have their campaigns been “the biggest step forward for
farm animals in America …since 1975, when Animal Liberation was
published,” in the words of the book’s author, Peter Singer, or rather just
“further proof that PETA has become nothing but an organizational pimp for
major corporate exploiters” as the Friends of Animals group claims?
To put it another way: are we struggling for animal welfare or animal rights,
reforms or revolution? According to activists on a national animal rights
list, “Animal welfarists are the enemy of animals everywhere” and “the new
welfarists are entrenching animal abuse in our culture.” Against this
kind of simplistic mindset, I suggest that the welfare/rights and
reform/revolution oppositions are false, and that framing the issue in terms of
incompatible choices is crippling. To abandon the project of reform is to
turn our back on the unimaginable present sufferings of farm animals as we
hobble toward a vague utopian future of total animal liberation, a vision that
may never be realized. The purism that condemns reforms typically has no
alternative vision for accomplishing the goal of animal liberation.
Conversely, reforms have their own drawbacks and dangers, and the challenge is
not to struggle exclusively for reform or liberation, but how to mediate these
two goals to end all industries of animal exploitation, the food industry above
all.
Animal Welfare and Animal Rights
As long as human beings have evinced concern for the
suffering of animals and worked toward its reduction, animal welfare philosophy
has been part of our culture. Such concerns are interwoven throughout the
Western tradition, part and parcel with callousness toward animals, and are at
the ethical core of ancient Eastern religions. The concept of animal rights,
clearly, could not have emerged until the notion of human rights was first
constructed in the 17th century, and did not become central to philosophical
discourse until the 20th century. While both animal welfare and rights
standpoints criticize human cruelty toward animals and needless animal
suffering, they diverge sharply over the moral status of animals.
Gary Francione, head of the animal rights law center at Rutgers University and
author of Introduction to Animal Rights, offers a cogent discussion of
the difference between welfare and rights philosophies. According to
Francione, animal welfarists acknowledge that animals have interests, but they
believe these can be sacrificed or traded away if there is some overridingly
compelling human interest at stake. Depending on the particular welfarist,
animals’ interests may be overridden for any number of reasons, ranging from
human entertainment (circuses, rodeos, bullfights, cockfighting, and the like)
to meat consumption to vivisection. Welfarists do not believe animals
should be caused “unnecessary” pain, and hold that any suffering caused them be
done “humanely.” Animal rights theorists, by contrast, reject the
utilitarian premises of welfarism that allows the sacrifice of animals to some alleged
greater utility or consequence. Rights theorists argue that animals’
interests cannot be sacrificed, no matter what good consequence may result (such
as an alleged advance in medical knowledge). Just as we believe that it is
immoral to sacrifice a human individual to a “greater good” if it improves the
overall social welfare, so animal rights theorists persuasively apply the same
logic to animals.
Importantly, the rights approach treats animals as individuals, as (conscious,
sentient, and thinking) “persons” (not to be confused with “people”), whereas
the animal welfare position -- whatever its professed degree of sentimentality
-- treats animals as things or property.&nbbsp; Indeed, the main barrier to the
liberation of animals from their countless forms of exploitation is their
property status and the legal claims the property holder has over them. Thus,
if I liberated animals from a laboratory run by a sadistic scientist, I, not
the scientist, would go to jail because I “stole” his “property.” The 10
billion animals that suffer and die in U.S. factory farms and slaughterhouses
endure indescribable horror because they are the property of an evil industry
that profits off their pain.
As Professor Francione argues, the lives of animals ultimately can only be
protected through a shift from welfarism to rights, and the abolition of the
legal system that enslaves them as property objects. “Even if we increase the
weight attached to the animal interests [through welfare arguments],“ he
argues, “the human property rights cannot be abrogated without a compelling
justification. No animal interest is likely to be regarded as supplying
that compelling interest as long as animals are regarded as the property of
their owners.” Thus, for example, no matter how comfortable we could make
the lives of animals in experimental laboratories, it remains exceedingly
difficult at present to validate the claim that scientists and universities do
not in reality “own” the animals they purchased from a laboratory animal
breeding industry.
Francione correctly points out that animal rights is not an all or nothing
proposition, that rights are compatible with reforms. But everything
hinges on how we define reforms and link them to the ultimate aims of rights
and liberation. Some approaches “offer an arguably sensible half-measure
between continuing the approach of animal welfare, or beginning to chip away –
peacefully and through legal means – at the morally, politically, and
economically corrupt edifice that supports animal experimentation.”
For a reform to strengthen rather than weaken the goal of animal rights,
Francione establishes 4 minimal conditions an acceptable regulation would have
to meet: (1) it must prohibit or end a particular form of exploitation rather
than seek its amelioration through “more humane” standards; (2) it must
repudiate sacrificing or trading away an animal interest for utilitarian
reasons; (3) it must therefore be informed by the concept of the inherent value
of an animal life and repudiate the reduction of the subject of a life to the
object of someone’s property; and (4) it must be accompanied by demands for the
end of animal exploitation as a whole.
Francione would reject, for example, a reform measure that sought to reduce the
number of animals used in chemical burn experiments, but he would embrace a
Congressional law to stop funding, effectively ceasing, the use of all animals
in burn experiments. This law would not by itself bring about the goal of liberating
animals from all forms of exploitation, of course, but it goes far beyond mere
amelioration of an exploited group in this particular case.
Similarly, Francione would not support calls such as reducing the number of
laying hens in a battery cage from 6 to 2 because it is entails more “humane”
treatment, without questioning the notion of hens as property or struggling to
abolish the battery cage system altogether. And finally it is clear that he
would not support the PETA campaign against the giant fast food corporations,
as from his perspective they are merely ameliorative measures. PETA’s
campaign would not satisfy conditions (1) and (2). It is important to
point out, however, that it has fulfilled criteria (3) and (4), as PETA has always
advocated animals have intrinsic value (“Animals are not ours to eat, wear, or
experiment on” as their popular poster and bumper sticker says) and rejected
the concept that animals are human property. Most importantly, unlike the
American Humane Association’s Society Free Farmed certificate program, PETA has
addressed the root cause of the torture and death of 10 billion farm
animals every year in this country -- namely, carnivorism and consumer demand
for animal flesh and bodily secretions – through campaigns to promote veganism
and cruelty-free clothing and skin care products (see http://www.peta.org/mall/cc.html
and http://www.veganstore.com/index.html).
Rather than being a tepid welfare group lacking the big picture or a radical
and uncompromising animal rights organization, PETA employs a two-track
strategy of promoting reforms while advancing the philosophy of animal
rights, veganism, cruelty-free products, and the abolition of vivisection,
circuses and rodeos, and other institutions of animal slavery.
Revolution Through Evolution, Evolution Through Revolution
Animal liberation clearly is a long-term struggle; in the meantime, it is
imperative that we make as many improvements in the lives of animals as
possible. At the same time, to heed Francione’s warnings, it is urgent
that we do not become mired in only improving the current institutions of
slavery and exploitation, thereby legitimating them as “humane,” and that we
work toward their ultimate destruction. From weak welfarist grounds, we might
win a few battles for animals currently suffering in their cages, but lose the
wider war for their liberation. In the big picture, PETA’s campaign would
be a failure if they accepted only reforms or got backed into a corner where
they could not exert more pressure on animal food industries, and thus indeed
become complicit in animal exploitation. But PETA is monitoring the Big 3
and will resume protests and I suspect will continue to rachet up the level of
demand.
The problem is not with reform, but with reform as an end in itself, rather
than as a means to the end of animal liberation. If we maintain a clear
realization that our ultimate goal is animal liberation and the end of
vivisection, factory farms, slaughterhouses, animal entertainment industries,
and the like, we can work toward changing the root causes while simultaneously
making immediate reforms. Indeed, as we win achievable reforms, we
empower our movement and energize our base to keep struggle for the long-term
goals, whereas abstract purism is a sure road to ineffectiveness and despair.
Francione’s criteria offer one way to bridge the gap between reform and
revolution, welfare and rights, but in some contexts it may be too strict. The
meat and dairy industries are too large, too entrenched, and animal suffering
too great to warrant anything but whatever incremental strategy we can
gain. The concept of “humane killing” does sound ludicrous, but not to
the animals being dismembered or boiled while fully aware and conscious.
The call for “bigger cages” may appear reactionary and complicit, but not to
the laying hens crammed into wire prisons. Advocating the sale of veggie
burgers at restaurants and fast food outlets like McDonalds is not nonsensical
if ever-more Americans choose them and thus reduce their impact on animals and
the environment. But, crucially, more significant gains have been won
which do fulfill Francione’s criteria, specifically the abolition of forced
molting and, hopefully soon, debeaking.
Beyond the immediate gains, PETA’s campaigns helped to focus a spotlight on the
horrors that transpire in factory farms and slaughterhouses that previously did
not exist. PETA and other groups have created an unprecedented gain: “For
the first time,” United Poultry Concerns stated, the [farm] animals
themselves have been declared to matter,” as opposed to the slaughterhouse
workers or the environment. This is truly a momentous step, not to be
undervalued from purist grounds. Rather than allowing people to feel
better about eating meat, it is just as likely people were appalled by what
they learned and began to eat less meat or none at all – a change PETA and
other national groups continue to promote through their vegan education
campaigns. Ultimately, change must come from below, from a growing movement of
enlightened consumers. But the struggle to transform the consumers and
the producers of meat has now become one.
** Steve Best is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at the
University of Texas, El Paso. He is Vice-President of the Vegetarian
Society of El Paso, a long time vegan and animal rights activist, and author of
numerous books and articles in the areas of social theory, postmodernism, and
cultural studies. Some of his writings are posted at
http://utminers.utep.edu/best/
** This article originally appeared in "Life Giving Choices", the
newsletter of the Vegetarian Society of El Paso (VSEP).
*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»«:*´`*´`³¤³´`*:»«:*´`³¤³´`*:»³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`´`*:»«:*³¤³´`³¤³´`
~2~
Memorable Quote
"Those
who have forsaken the killing of all; those who are helpmates to all; those who
are a sanctuary to all; those men are in the way of heaven."
~ Hitopadesa (Hindu)
«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»
Susan Roghair - EnglandGal@aol.com
Animal Rights Online
P O Box 7053
Tampa, Fl 33673-7053
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1395/
-=Animal Rights Online=-
&
Advisory Board Member, Animal Rights Network Inc.,
not-for-profit publisher of The Animals' Agenda Magazine
http://www.animalsagenda.org/
The Animals' Agenda Magazine: WebEdition
«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»
(Permission Granted To Quote/Forward/Reprint/Repost This Newsletter In
Whole Or In Part with credit given to EnglandGal@aol.com)
* Please forward
this to a friend who you think
might be interested in subscribing to our newsletter.
* ARO
gratefully accepts and considers articles for publication
from subscribers on veg*anism and animal issues.
Send submissions to JJswans@aol.com
Return to the ARO Newsletter
Archives