…and Abolition Means Veganism!

Animal Rights: Marginalized By The “Animal Movement”

A number of writers have claimed that we need to support other than an abolitionist approach because that approach has been marginalized politically and has been unsuccessful.

For example, in their book, Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights, Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka observe:

A central task for the movement is to figure out why ART [animal rights theory] remains so politically marginal. Why is the general public increasingly open to welfarist and ecological reforms, such as Proposition 2 or endangered species legislation, while remaining implacably resistant to animal rights? Having acknowledged that animals are living beings whose suffering matters morally, why is it so hard to take the next step and acknowledge that animals have moral rights not to be used as means to human ends?

Donaldson and Kymlicka claim to be very sympathetic to the abolitionist perspective. But they ask: why has this position remained so marginal?

I will have a great deal more to say about this book in a response that I am writing to Professors Kymlicka and Donaldson, as well as to others who have written recently about abolitionist theory. But I find it odd that they think that there is mystery here.

The “animal movement” is dominated by large groups that promote welfare reform and actually go out of their way to marginalize the abolitionist perspective.

It is not likely that the public, which is concerned about animal ethics, will “take the next step” when Peter Singer, the so-called “father of the animal rights movement,” claims:

if someone “really were thorough-going in eating only animals that had had good lives, that could be a defensible ethical position. It’s not my position, but I wouldn’t be critical of someone who was that conscientious about it.”

According to Singer, as long as we provide a reasonably pleasant life and a relatively pleasant death, we can discharge our moral obligations to animals. For example, Singer says:

[T]o avoid inflicting suffering on animals—not to mention the environmental costs of intensive animal production—we need to cut down drastically on the animal products we consume. But does that mean a vegan world? That’s one solution, but not necessarily the only one. If it is the infliction of suffering that we are concerned about, rather than killing, then I can also imagine a world in which people mostly eat plant foods, but occasionally treat themselves to the luxury of free range eggs, or possibly even meat from animals who live good lives under conditions natural for their species, and are then humanely killed on the farm. (The Vegan, Autumn 2006)

So Singer tells the public that animal welfare is a morally defensible response to the fundamental questions of animal ethics. Why should anyone go further? Why would anyone go further?

Why should they go vegan when CEO of The Humane Society of the United States Wayne Pacelle, himself a vegan, makes it very clear that “happy” meat is a morally good thing? Pacelle states:

I don’t think that everyone needs to adopt a vegetarian diet to make a difference. I think that little choices that we make — getting animal products from a farmer who is raising animals in a proper and humane way or reducing consumption by a little bit — all of these things matter. You don’t need to go the full measure in order to have an impact. One thing I don’t want is people to feel paralyzed, that somehow you’ve got to fit some orthodox regimen in order to be a part of this. Absolutely not. Little decisions that all of us make can have an enormous consequences.

You can have an impact by eating meat and animal products “from a farmer who is raising animals in a proper and humane way.”

So HSUS is not only suggesting that products made “in a proper and humane way” are actually available, but that consuming them is consistent with treating animals as members of the moral community and caring morally about them.

HSUS actively promotes the consumption of meat and other animal products.

Donaldson and Kymlicka observe that even People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), perceived to have a radical message, promotes welfare reform.

Again, if people who are perceived by the public to be speaking for the animals claim that welfare reform is all that is morally required, why would the public think otherwise?

As I stated in the book I co-wrote with Professor Robert Garner, The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation?”:

The modern animal movement has never promoted a clear and unequivocal abolitionist/vegan message. On the contrary. Almost all of the large groups in the United States, UK, and elsewhere promote a welfarist approach, and to the extent that they even talk about the abolitionist/vegan approach, they present it as some sort of distant and utopian goal. They often pejoratively label veganism as “absolutist,” “fundamentalist,” or “purist” and, following Singer, promote being a “conscientious omnivore” as a morally defensible position.

Please understand that I am not saying that if all of the animal groups shifted focus and promoted a clear and unequivocal abolitionist/vegan campaign, we would abolish exploitation overnight or anytime soon. But we would at least start the required paradigm shift by focusing discussion on the right issues. The welfarist model has failed and will continue to fail because it focuses discussion on the wrong set of issues. And I very much disagree that the right not to suffer, without a discussion about the morality of use per se, is going to lead anywhere other than to more of the same welfare regulation.

So in response to the question asked by Professors Donaldson and Kymlicka, the problem is not that the abolitionist perspective is marginal; the problem is that the abolitionist position has been actively marginalized by an animal movement consisting of enormous animal charities that dominate the marketplace of ideas and tell the public that welfare reform is all that is necessary.

*****

If you are not vegan, please go vegan. Veganism is about nonviolence. First and foremost, it’s about nonviolence to other sentient beings. But it’s also about nonviolence to the earth and nonviolence to yourself.

The World is Vegan!

Gary L. Francione
Professor, Rutgers University

©2012 Gary L. Francione

PATRICE GREANVILLE

Mainstream media often reinforce uncritically some of the most backward or morally unsustainable human activities, like hunting, or using animals for any form of “personal entertainment,” or use, no matter how costly to the animals involved, or unwarranted. In  the case of the (backward) crowd pleasing “GATOR HUNT’ in Florida, Mississippi, etc., guys compete to show who can reel in the biggest animal, which naturally ends up dead, despite the fact that it was in its (shrinking habitat) minding his or her own business. In some case the media nerds report these things matter of factly, as if they were as natural as breathing, with little or no commentary, which is bad enough. In other cases, they celebrate the event, or even mock the animal victims, which only encourages the dim types to go further in their human supremacist beliefs.  VIDEOS BELOW

And here’s Natalie Morales, pretty and reliably perky but also terminally dumb, giving the high-five to an exercise in worthless macho vanity and warrantless persecution of other species.  THAT simple fact apparently eludes people like Morales.  What’s the effing point, Natalie?

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

News

August 30

By MATT CAMPBELL and TONY RIZZO

The Kansas City Star

By Suzana Megles

There are so many things in this world that need changing. There is also so much suffering to be addressed both regarding humans and animals. Changing the way we eat can affect both positively if we are courageous enough to try new things.

My title is a bit deceptive.  Perhaps it should read “A humane alternative to eggs,” but tell me, how many people would want to read something with a title like that?

Still, I hope that anyone who loves eggs, but despises the cruel suffering of our caged chickens, will at least want to read about a very compassionate and enterprising young man named Josh Tetrick.  As Hampton Creek’s CEO, he aims to revolutionize the food industry with a plant-based egg alternative.

Bill Gates, in his endorsement of a vegan lifestyle to save the world, believes that it is the only way we can feed the millions and millions of people who face starvation daily.  We need to use our grain and water resources to feed them instead of the animals we raise for food. And he mentioned even eating faux meat and eggs to help do this.

I had already heard about the first meatless hamburger that tastes and looks like a real hamburger, but I was surprised when he mentioned faux eggs. So, I was delighted to learn more about them in “allanimals”, a bi-monthly magazine put out by the Humane Society of the US.

We already have an “Egg Replacer” product we can use anywhere calling for a binder, but it can’t be used to make a scrambled egg dish or a quiche.  Nor will this new product yet do this, but Tetrick says that in the future he hopes to develop a liquid product that could be used to make scrambled eggs.

For now we hope that his product–a pale green powder called Beyond Eggs–will lead to the eventual elimination of the cruel battery cages where our chickens are forced to “live” miserable lives day in and day out.

His product gets its green color from a variety of pea, which the company’s scientists and chefs identified after testing 287 plants.  It also contains sunflower and canola oil and other natural ingredients. It can be used to replace eggs in baked goods like cookies or in sauces like mayonnaise.

There is a picture of this young handsome entrepreneur in this HSUS article, which is titled “Best Laid Plans“.  He looks more like a movie-star than businessman.  But this man is much more than either.  He is driven by compassion to find a product that does not depend on eggs laid on factory farms by hens  crammed in battery ages where they  can’t even spread their wings.

Even incarcerated criminals and murderers are allowed to exercise, and yet these poor hapless chickens are given no consideration at all as to their needs by virtue of an exploitive factory system that we endorse every time we buy their “cheap” eggs.

The food industry traditionally uses processed eggs in either liquid, frozen, or powdered form to make cookies and mayonnaise. One-third of factory-farm eggs goes for this purpose.  Tetrick hopes to take over as much of this processed-egg market he can because he says his product is not only more humane, but is even 20 percent less expensive.  It is also better for the environment and healthier for us because it has no cholesterol and has none of the food-safety risks of eggs from factory farms.

This year Beyond Eggs will be used by two major food companies.  This product will also be available to consumers through Hampton Creek’s website. I plan to ask The Bin–my neighborhood health store–about carrying this product as well.

HSUS’ article is worth reading and I only have touched some salient points.  But I would like to share what this young man said to HSUS’ Karen E. Lange, senior writer, about his vision for Beyond Eggs and where he hopes it will lead.

Her question to Tetrick was, how did your concern for animals lead you to develop an alternative-egg product?

“About 1.1 trillion eggs are laid every single year globally,” he responded.  “Most come from places that we wouldn’t be too proud of if we saw them, places that are awfully cruel, awfully unsustainable, and pretty bad for our health.  And I just thought that there’s got to be a better way to take the animal entirely out of the equation when it comes to conventional egg production and do something that’s better and less expensive.”

What a marvelous, compassionate, and beautiful human being.  What else can I say except that I hope and pray that his vision will lead to the improvement of the billions of chickens globally who today are terribly exploited–” living” lives of pure hell.

Josh Balk, Director of corporate policy for The HSUS’s Farm Animal Protection Campaign, observed that “Beyond Eggs could pave the way to ending battery-cage facilities so that the only eggs on the market come from higher welfare, pasture-based systems.”

Please God, may it happen.

A final comment

I have been concerned about animal suffering ever since I received my first puppy Peaches in 1975. She made me take a good look at the animal kingdom and I was shocked to see how badly we treat so many animals. At 77, I’ve been a vegan for the past 30 years and I thank God every day that I am. I am most disturbed at how little the Catholic Church and Christian churches generally give to concern re animal suffering in their ministry. I wrote to 350 bishops in 2001 and only 10-13 responded. I feel that the very least they can do is to instruct that the priests give one sermon a year on compassion to animals. I am still waiting for that sermon. I also belong to Catholic Concern for Animals – founded in England in 1929. (They are on the internet) I recently sent a sample copy of their bi-monthly publication called the ARK to the 8 Catholic bishops of Ohio. Only ONE kindly responded. Somehow we have to reach the Christian teaching magisterium. There is next to nothing re animal concerns and compassion for them. They basically believe that animals are the lesser of God’s creation and that gives us the right to do anything we want to them. Way wrong. We need to change their mindsets. The animals are God’s first and He expects us to treat them compassionately.