Animal rights movement

For the concept, see Animal rights. For other uses, see Animal liberation (disambiguation).

The animal liberation movement or animal rights movement, sometimes called the animal personhood movement and animal advocacy movement, is the global movement of activists, academics, lawyers, campaigns, and organized groups who oppose the use of non-human animals in research, as food, as clothing, or as entertainment.

It is regarded as the first social reform movement to have been founded by philosophers.^[1]

Terms

The terms "animal liberation" and "animal rights" movement are often used interchangeably, but the term "animal liberation" is broader in scope.

All animal liberationists believe that non-human animals have basic needs and interests that deserve recognition and protection, but the movement can be split into two broad camps. Animal rights advocates, or rights liberationists, believe that these basic interests confer moral rights on the animals, and ought to confer legal rights on them; ^[1] see, for example, the philosophy of Tom Regan. Utilitarian liberationists, on the other hand, do not believe that animals possess moral rights, but argue, on utilitarian grounds — utilitarianism being a moral philosophy that, in its simplest form, advocates basing moral decisions on the greatest happiness of the greatest number — that because animals have the ability to suffer, their suffering must be taken into account. To exclude animals from that consideration, they argue, is a form of discrimination; ^[2] see, for example, the work of Peter Singer.

Nature of the movement

Animal liberationists usually boycott a number of industries that use animals. Foremost among these is factory farming, [1] which produces the majority of meat, dairy products, and eggs in industrialized nations. The transportation of farm animals for slaughter, which often involves their live export, has in recent years been a major issue of campaigning for animal rights groups, particularly in the UK and Scandinavia.

The vast majority of animal rights advocates adopt vegetarian or vegan diets ^[3]; they may also avoid clothes made of animal skins, such as leather shoes, and will not use products known to contain animal byproducts. Goods containing ingredients that have been tested on animals are also avoided where possible. Company-wide boycotts are common. The Procter & Gamble corporation, for example, tests many of its products on animals, leading many liberationists to boycott all of their products, including food like peanut butter, because even though the peanut butter is not tested on animals, they do not want to be financially supporting animal testing in any way.

Many advocates dedicate themselves to educating and persuading the public. Some organizations, such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, strive to do this by garnering media attention for animal rights issues, often using outrageous stunts or advertisements to obtain media coverage for a more serious message.

There is a growing trend in the American movement towards devoting all resources to vegetarian outreach. The 9.8 billion animals killed there for food use every year far exceeds the number of animals being exploited in other ways. Groups such as Vegan Outreach and Compassion Over Killing devote their time to exposing factory-farming practices by publishing information for consumers and by organizing undercover investigations.

A growing number of activists engage in direct action. This typically involves the removal of animals from infiltrated facilities that use them, or damage to property at such facilities to cause financial loss. A number of incidents have involved violence or the threat of violence toward animal experimenters or others involved in the use of animals. Many of the ideas used by those who engage in direct action were developed by British activists. The UK is regarded as "Afghanistan for the growth of animal rights extremism throughout the world," Patti Strand of the American lobby group National Animal Alliance told the BBC. "The animal rights movement that we are dealing with in the United States is a direct import from the United Kingdom." ^[4]

Some activists have attempted blackmail and other illegal activities, such as the intimidation campaign to close Darley Oaks farm, which involved hate mail, malicious phonecalls, hoax bombs, arson attacks and property destruction, climaxing in the theft of Gladys Hammond's body, the owners' mother-in-law, from a Staffordshire grave. The Animal Liberation Front has been named as a terrorist threat by the FBI, and over a thousand attacks in one year in the UK alone caused £2.6m of damage to property, prompting some experts to state that animal rights now tops the list of causes that prompt violence in the UK. ^[5] Most animal welfare groups condemned the attacks.

There are also a growing number of "open rescues," in which liberationists enter businesses to remove animals without trying to hide their identities. Open rescues tend to be carried out by committed individuals willing to go to jail if prosecuted, but so far no farmer has been willing to press charges. [2]

Philosophical and legal aims

The movement aims to include animals in the moral community by putting the basic interests of non-human animals on an equal footing with the basic interests of human beings. A basic interest would be, for example, not being made to suffer pain on behalf of other individual human or non-human animals. The aim is to remove animals from the sphere of property and to award them personhood; that is, to see them awarded legal rights to protect their basic interests.

Who are we that we have set ourselves up on this pedestal and we believe that we have a right take from others everything—including their life—simply because we want to do it? Shouldn’t we stop and think for a second that maybe they are just others like us? Other nations, other individuals, other cultures. Just others. Not sub-human, but just different from being human.
— Ingrid Newkirk, President of PETA, ^[6]

Liberationists argue that animals appear to have value in law only in relation to their usefulness or benefit to their owners, and are awarded no intrinsic value whatsoever. In the United States, for example, state and federal laws formulate the rules for the treatment of animals in terms of their status as property. The Texas Animal Cruelty Laws apply only to pets living under the custody of human beings. They exclude birds, deer, rabbits, squirrels, and other wild animals not owned by humans. The U.S. Animal Welfare Act excludes "pet stores ... state and country fairs, livestock shows, rodeos, purebred dog and cat shows, and any fairs or exhibitions intended to advance agricultural arts and sciences." The Department of Agriculture interprets the Act as also excluding cold-blooded animals, and warm-blooded animals not "used for research, teaching, testing, experimentation ... exhibition purposes, or as a pet, [and] farm animals used for food, fiber, or production purposes". [3]

Regarding the campaign to change the status of animals as property, the movement has seen success in two countries. Switzerland passed legislation in 1992 recognizing non-human animals as beings, not things. In 2002, rights for non-human animals were enshrined in the German constitution when the words "and animals" were added to the clause obliging the state to respect and protect the dignity of human beings. [4]

The Seattle-based Great Ape Project (GAP) — founded by Australian philosopher Peter Singer, the author of Animal Liberation, widely regarded as the "bible" of the animal liberation movement — is campaigning for the United Nations to adopt its Declaration on Great Apes, which would see chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orang-utans included in a "community of equals" with human beings. The declaration wants to extend to the non-human apes the protection of three basic interests: the right to life, the protection of individual liberty, and the prohibition of torture. [5]

Methods

For groups in the movement, see List of animal rights groups.

For leadlerless resistance in animal rights, see Leaderless resistance.

For actions claimed by the Animal Liberation Front, see ALFlist.

The movement espouses a number of approaches to furthering the cause of animal rights. Some groups reject violence against persons, intimidation, threats, and the destruction of property or belongins: for example, the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) and Animal Aid. These groups concentrate on education and research, including carrying out undercover investigations of animal-testing facilities. There is evidence of prior cooperation between the BUAV and the ALF: for example, the BUAV used to donate office space for the use of the ALF in London in the early 1980s, and a BUAV executive introduced someone posing as a writer, but was actually an aspiring ALF activist, to Ronnie Lee who directed them to an ALF training camp in northern England. ^[7]. This activist, code-named Valerie, went on to found the United States ALF organization according to Newkirk.

Other groups do not condemn the destruction of property, or intimidation of those involved in what they perceive as animal abuse, but do not themselves engage in those activities, concentrating instead on education, research, media campaigns, and undercover investigations: for example, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

A third category of activists operates using the leaderless resistance model, working in covert cells consisting of small numbers of trusted friends, or of one individual acting alone. These cells engage in direct action: for example by carrying out raids to release animals from laboratories and farms, using names like the Animal Liberation Front (ALF); or by boycotting and targeting anyone or any business associated with the controversial animal testing lab, Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), using a campaign name like Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC).

Activists who have carried out or threatened acts of physical violence have operated using the names; Hunt Retribution Squad (HRS), Animal Rights Militia (ARM), Justice Department and the Revolutionary Cells--Animal Liberation brigade (RCALB).

A November 13, 2003 edition of CBS News' 60 Minutes charged that "eco-terrorists," a term used by the United States government to refer to the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front, are considered by the FBI to be "the country’s biggest domestic terrorist threat." [6] John Lewis, a Deputy Assistant Director for Counterterrorism at the FBI, stated in a 60 Minutes interview that these groups "have caused over $100 million worth of damage nationwide", and that "there are more than 150 investigations of eco-terrorist crimes underway". [7] In September 2006, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the "Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act", legislation which would allow federal authorities to "help prevent, better investigate, and prosecute individuals who seek to halt biomedical research through acts of intimidation, harassment, and violence." [8]

Public support

Animal People, an independent newspaper covering the international animal-protection and animal-rights movements, indicates that these issues are increasing in popularity with the public. Citing U.S. IRS (tax) form 990 numbers for 2004, the newspaper says that donations to animal rights groups increased by 40 percent from 2003 to 2004. For example:

The Humane Society of the United States (animal protection): revenues of $74 million, up 3 percent.
The Massachusetts Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (animal protection): revenues of $48.2 million, up an 11 percent.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (animal rights): $28.1 million, up 20 percent.
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (animal rights): $16 million, up from $12 million.

Animal People estimates the combined budgets of animal protection organizations at more than $290 million in 2004, up from $207 million in 2003.[9]

The U.S. Justice Department labels underground groups the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front as "terrorist organizations"[10][11], under the USA PATRIOT Act. The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act of the U.S. was created with the goal of targeting people involved in violence, arson, threat or any other forms of terrorism by prescribing several punishments, but it has also has had what has been described as 'a chilling effect' on free speech, because several activists working legally for animal rights have been prosecuted under the law.[12]

Notes

^ ^a ^b "Animal rights," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2007.
^ Taylor, Angus. Animals and Ethics. Broadview Press, 2003, pp. 153 ff.
^ Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation, second edition, Random House, 1975; this edition 1990, p. 160ff.
^ Cox, Simon & Vadon, Richard. "How animal rights took on the world", BBC Radio 4, retrieved June 18, 2006.
^ Animal rights, terror tactics - BBC News
^ Interview with Ingrid Newkirk, David Shankbone, Wikinews, November 20, 2007.
^ Newkirk, Ingrid. Free the animals. Lantern Books, 2000. ISBN 1-930051-22-0 }