| Animal Rights Frequently Asked Questions. "What do you mean by animal rights?" Animal rights means that all animals deserve certain kinds of consideration - consideration of what is in their own best interests regardless of whether they are cute, useful to humans, or an endangered species and regardless of whether any human cares about them at all (just as a mentally-challenged human has rights even if he or she is not cute or useful or even if everyone dislikes him or her). It means recognising that animals are not ours to use - for food, clothing, entertainment, or experimentation. Animals are not property or objects. "What is the difference between 'animal rights' and 'animal welfare'?" Animal welfare theories accept that animals have interests but allow these interests to be traded away as long as there are some human benefits that are thought to justify that sacrifice. Animal rights means that animals, like humans, have interests that cannot be sacrificed or traded away just because it might benefit others. However, the rights position does not hold that rights are absolute; an animal's rights, just like those of humans, must be limited, and rights can certainly conflict. Animal rights means that animals are not ours to use for food, clothing, entertainment, or experimentation. Animal welfare allows these uses as long as "humane" guidelines are followed. "What rights should non-human animals have?" All animals have the basic right not to be treated as objects or things. All animals have the right to equal consideration of their interests. For instance, a dog most certainly has an interest in not having pain inflicted on him or her unnecessarily. We therefore are obliged to take that interest into consideration and respect the dog's right not to have pain unnecessarily inflicted on him or her. However, animals don't always have the same rights as humans, because their interests are not always the same as ours and some rights would be irrelevant to non-human animals' lives. For instance, a dog doesn't have an interest in voting and therefore doesn't have the right to vote, since that right would be as meaningless to a dog as it is to a child. But all animals have the right to liberty and life. "Where do you draw the line?" The renowned humanitarian Albert Schweitzer, who accomplished so much for both humans and animals in his lifetime, would take time to stoop and move a worm from hot pavement to cool earth. Aware of the problems and responsibilities an expanded ethic brings with it, he said we each must "live daily from judgement to judgement, deciding each case as it arises, as wisely and mercifully as we can." We can't stop all suffering, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't stop any. In today's world of virtually unlimited choices, there are usually "kinder, gentler" ways for most of us to feed, clothe, entertain, and educate ourselves than by killing non-human animals. "What about plants?" There is currently no reason to believe that plants experience pain, devoid as they are of central nervous systems, nerve endings, and brains. It is theorised that the main reason all animals have the ability to experience pain is as a form of self-protection. If you touch something that hurts and could possibly injure you, you will learn from the pain it produces to leave it alone in the future. Since plants cannot locomote and do not have the need to learn to avoid certain things, this sensation would be superfluous. Plants are completely different physiologically from animals. Unlike animals' body parts, many perennial plants, fruits, and vegetables can be harvested over and over again without resulting in the death of the plant or the tree. If one is concerned about the impact of vegetable agriculture on the environment, a vegetarian diet is still preferable to a flesh-based one, since the vast majority of grains and legumes raised today are used as feed for cattle. By eating vegetables directly, rather than eating animals such as cows who must consume 16 pounds of vegetation in order to convert them into 1 pound of flesh, one is saving many more plants' lives (and destroying less land). "It's fine for you to believe in animal rights, but you shouldn't tell other people what to do." Now you are telling me what to do! Everybody is entitled to their own opinions, but freedom of thought does not always imply freedom of action. You are free to believe whatever you want as long as you don't hurt others. You may believe that non-human animals should be killed, that black people should be enslaved, or that women should be beaten, but you don't always have the right to put your beliefs into practice. As for telling people what to do, society exists so that there will be rules governing people's behaviour. The very nature of reform movements is to tell others what to do - don't use humans as slaves, don't sexually harass women, etc. - and all movements initially encounter opposition from people who want to go on doing the criticised unjust behaviour. "Non-human animals don't reason, don't understand rights, and don't always respect our rights, so why should we apply our ideas of morality to them?" First of all, it is simply untrue that no non-human animal reasons. But even ignoring this fact, a non-human animal's inability to understand and adhere to our rules is as irrelevant as a child's or a human person with a developmental disability's inability to do so. Some non-human animals are not capable of choosing to change their behaviour, but adult human beings have the intelligence to choose between behaviour that hurts others, and behaviour that doesn't. "Where does the animal rights movement stand on abortion?" There are people on both sides of the abortion issue in the animal rights movement, just as there are people on both sides of animal rights issues in the pro-life movement. And just as the pro-life movement has no official position on animal rights, neither has the animal rights movement an official position on abortion. "It's almost impossible to avoid using all animal products; if you're still causing suffering without realising it, what's the point?" It is impossible to live your life without causing some harm; we've all accidentally stepped on ants or breathed in gnats, but that doesn't mean we should intentionally cause unnecessary harm. Just because you might accidentally hit someone with your car is no reason to run someone over on purpose. "What about all the customs, traditions, and jobs that depend on using non-human animals?" The invention of the automobile, the abolition of slavery, and the end of World War II also necessitated job retraining and restructuring. This is simply an ingredient in all social progress - not a reason to deter progress. "Don't animal rights activists commit 'terrorist' acts?" The animal rights movement is non-violent. One of the central beliefs shared by most animal rights people is rejection of harm to any animal, human or otherwise. However, any large movement is going to have factions that believe in the use of force. "How can you justify the millions' worth of property damage by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF)?" Throughout history, some people have felt the need to break the law to fight injustice. The Underground Railroad and the French Resistance are both examples of people breaking the law in order to answer to a higher morality. "The ALF", which is simply the name adopted by people acting illegally on behalf of animal rights, breaks inanimate objects such as stereotaxic devices and decapitators in order to save lives. It burns empty buildings in which non-human animals are tortured and killed. ALF "raids" have given us proof of horrific cruelty that would not have been discovered or believed otherwise. They have resulted in officials' filing of criminal charges against laboratories, citing of experimenters for violations of animal welfare acts, and in some cases, the shutting down of the most abusive labs for good. Often, ALF raids have been followed by widespread scientific condemnation of the practices occurring in the targeted labs. "How can you justify spending your time on non-human animals when there are so many humans who need help?" There are very serious problems in the world that deserve our attention; non-human animal slavery and abuse is one of them. We should try to alleviate or stop suffering and injustice wherever we can. Helping non-human animals is not any more or less important than helping human beings - they are both important. Non-human animal abuse and human abuse are interconnected. What's more, the fact that many people do not yet consider the plight of non-human animals as important makes our work in this field more urgent. "Most non-human animals used for food, fur, or experiments are bred for that purpose." Being bred for a certain purpose does not change an animal's biological capacity to feel pain and fear. Neither does it diminish the need and right for freedom, which can only be witheld by considering the victims as objects or things. "God put non-human animals here for us to use; the Bible gives us dominion over non-human animals." Dominion is not the same as tyranny. The Queen of England has "dominion" over her subjects, but that doesn't mean she can eat them, wear them, or experiment on them. If we have dominion over non-human animals at all, surely it is to protect them, not to use them for our own ends. There is nothing in the Bible that would justify our modern day policies and programs that desecrate the environment, destroy entire species of wildlife, and inflict torment and death on billions of non-human animals every year. The Bible imparts a reverence for life; a loving God would not help but be appalled at the way non-human animals are being treated. "Non-human animals in cages on factory farms or laboratories don't suffer much because they've never known anything else." To be prevented from performing the most basic instinctual behaviours causes tremendous suffering. Even animals caged since birth feel the need to move around, groom themselves, stretch their limbs or wings, and exercise. Herd animals and flock animals become distressed when they are made to live in isolation or when they are put in groups too large for them to be able to recognise other members. In addition, all confined animals suffer from intense boredom - some so severely that it can lead to self-mutilation or other self-destructive behaviour. "If non-human animal exploitation were wrong, it would be illegal." Legality is no guarantee of morality. What does and doesn't have legal rights is determined merely by the opinion of today's legislators. The law changes as public opinion or political motivations change, but ethics are not so arbitrary. Look at some of the other things that have at one time been legal - human slavery, the oppression of women, the death penalty etc. Moral progress demands changes in legislation, but morality and ethics remain the same, irrespective of man-made laws. "Non-human animals are not as intelligent or advanced as humans." If possessing superiour intelligence does not entitle one human to abuse another human for his or her purposes, why should it entitle humans to abuse non-humans? There are non-human animals who are unquestionably more intelligent, creative, aware, and communicative than some humans, as in the case of a chimpanzee compared to a human infant or a human person with a severe developmental disability. Should the more intelligent non-human animals have rights and the less intelligent humans be denied rights? No. Intelligence is no prerequisite for rights. Only sentience is. "Conditions on "factory farms" or "fur" farms are no worse than in the wild, where non-human animals die of starvation, disease, or predation. At least the animals on "factory farms" are fed and protected." This argument was used to claim that black people were better off as slaves on plantations than as free men and women. Non-human animals on "factory farms", which are nothing short of torture chambers, suffer so much that it is inconceivable that they could be worse off in the wild. The wild isn't "wild" to the animals who live there; it's their home. There they have their freedom and can engage in their natural activities. The fact that they might suffer in the wild is no reason to ensure that they suffer in captivity. "Vegetarianism is a personal choice. Don't try to force it on everyone else." From a moral standpoint, actions that harm others are not matters of personal choice. Murder, child abuse, and non-human animal abuse are all immoral. Our society now encourages meat-eating and the cruelties of "factory farming", but history teaches that society also once encouraged slavery, child labour, and many other practices now universally recognised as wrong. "Non-human animals kill other animals for food, so why shouldn't we?" Most of the non-human animals who kill for food could not survive if they didn't. That is not the case for us. We are better off not eating animal body parts. Many other animals are vegetarians, including some of our closest primate relatives. Why don't we look to them as our example instead of to carnivores? "Isn't eating "meat" natural?" The only people who strictly speaking can claim to eat only natural food are those who eat only raw food. Cooked food is not natural. And while people can eat raw fruit, nuts and vegetables, most people would not even think of eating raw unprocessed animal body parts! It is also worth noticing that not all that is natural is necessarily good, both for humans or other animals. Otherwise, living "naturally" would require that we never take medication to cure illnesses. "The non-human animals have to die sometime." So do we, but that doesn't give us the right to kill people or cause them a lifetime of suffering. "Farmers have to treat "their" animals well, or they won't produce as much milk or lay as many eggs." Enslaved non-human animals do not gain weight, lay eggs, and produce milk because they are comfortable, content, or well cared for, but rather, because they have been manipulated specifically to do these things through genetics, medications, hormones, and management techniques. In addition, non-human animals raised to be murdered for food today are slaughtered at extremely young ages, usually before disease and misery have decimated them. Such huge numbers of non-human animals are raised for food that it is less expensive for farmers to absorb some losses than it is to provide "humane conditions". But even if "humane conditions" were economically viable, justice would require that no animal be treated as property, or denied life for other people's tastes. "What will we do with all those chickens, cows, and pigs if everyone becomes a vegetarian?" It's unrealistic to expect that everyone will stop eating murdered non-human animals overnight. As the demand for "meat" decreases, the number of non-human animals bred will also decrease. Farmers will stop breeding so many, and will turn to other types of agriculture. When there are fewer of these non-human animals, they will be able to live more natural lives. "If everyone turned vegetarian, it would be worse off for non-human animals because many of them would not even be born." Life on "factory farms" is so miserable that it is hard to see how we are doing anyone a favour by bringing them into that type of existance, confining them, tormenting them, and then murdering them. It is better not to be born at all, than to be born into a lifetime of suffering, and finally to be killed by the butcher's knife. Also, it makes no sense to say that someone who has not been created misses anything from life. Hypothetical beings do not exist, and therefore have no interests. "If everyone switches to vegetables and grains, will there be enough to eat?" Yes. We feed so much grain to non-human animals in order to fatten them up to be murdered and be eaten by humans, that if we all became vegetarians, we could produce enough food to feed the entire world. In the US, non-human animals are fed more than 80 percent of the corn grown, and more than 95 percent of the oats. The world's cows alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people - more than the entire human population on Earth. "Don't vegetarians have difficulty getting enough protein?" In the West, our problem is that we get too much protein, not too little. Many people get as much as up to seven times as much protein as they need. You can get enough protein from whole wheat bread, oatmeal, beans, corn, peas, mushrooms, or broccoli - almost every food contains protein. Unless you eat a great deal of junk food, it's almost impossible to eat as many calories as we need for good health without getting enough protein. By contrast, too much protein is the majour cause of osteoporosis and contributes to kidney failure and other diseases of affluence. "Don't humans have to eat "meat" to stay healthy?" Both the US Department of Agriculture and the American Dietetic Association have endorsed vegetarian diets. Studies have also shown that vegetarians have stronger immune systems than flesh-eaters, and that flesh-eaters are almost twice as likely to die of heart disease, 60 percent more likely to die of cancer, and 30 percent more likely to die of other diseases. The consumption of flesh and non-human animal-derived products has been conclusively linked with diabetes, arthritis, asteoporosis, clogged arteries, obesity, asthma, and impotence. "Eating "meat" is natural. It's been going on for thousands of years. Our bodies are designed that way." Actually, human bodies are better suited for a vegetarian diet. Carnivorous animals have long, curved fangs, claws, and a short digestive tract. Humans have flat, flexible nails, and our so called "canine" teeth are miniscule compared to those of carnivores, and even compared to vegetarian primates like gorillas and orangutans. Our tiny canine teeth are better suited to biting into fruits than tearing through hides. We have flat molars and a long digestive tract suited to a diet of vegetables, fruits, and grains. Eating animal flesh is hazardous to our health; it contributes to heart disease, cancer, and many other health problems. "What's wrong with drinking milk? Don't cows need to be milked?" In order for a cow to produce milk, she must have a calf. "Dairy cows" are "impregnated" (raped) every year in order to keep up a steady supply of milk. In the natural order of things, the cow's calf would drink her milk (eliminating her need to be milked by humans). But cows' babies are taken away within a day or two of birth so that humans can have the milk nature intended for their calves. Female calves may be slaughtered immediately, or raised to be future cows robbed of their milk. Male calves are confined for 16 weeks in tiny "veal" crates too small for them to even turn around in. The current high demand for milk products requires that cows be pushed beyond their natural limits, genetically engineered and fed growth hormones in order to produce huge quantities of milk. Even the farmers who choose not to raise animals intensively must both eliminate the calf (who would otherwise drink the milk) and eventually send the mother off to slaughter after her milk production wanes. "I know a vegetarian who is unhealthy." There are healthy and unhealthy vegetarians. But doctors agree that vegetarians who eat a varied, low-fat diet stand a much better chance of living longer, healthier lives than their meat-eating counterparts. "I didn't kill the non-human animal." No, but you hired the killer. Whenever you purchase "meat", that means that the killing was done for you and you paid for it. "If you were starving on a boat at sea, and there were a non-human animal on the boat, would you eat him?" Humans will go to extremes to save their own lives, even if it means hurting someone innocent. (Humans have even killed and eaten other humans in such situations). This example, however, isn't relevant to our daily choices. For most of us, there is no emergency, and no excuse to kill non-human animals for food. "It's ok to eat eggs because chickens lay them naturally. The eggs we buy in the supermarket are sterile and not unborn fetuses." This is true, but the real cruelty of egg production lies in the treatment of the "laying hens" themselves, who are perhaps the most abused of all animals. Each egg from today's farms represents 22 hours of misery for a hen packed in a cage the size of a filing cabinet drawer with up to five other chickens. Cages are stacked many tiers high, and feces from cages above fall onto the chickens below. Hens become lame and develop osteoporosis from forced immobility and calcium lost to produce egg shells. Some birds' feet grow around the wire cage floors; they starve to death because they are unable to reach the food trough. At just two years old, most hens are "spent" and they are sent to the slaughterhouse. Egg-laying hatcheries don't have any use for male chicks; they are killed by suffocation, decapitation, crushing, or are ground up alive. "Without hunting, wild animals would overpopulate and die of starvation." Starvation and disease are unfortunate, but they are nature's way of ensuring that the strong survive. Natural predators help keep prey species strong by killing only the sick and weak. Hunters, however, kill any non-human animal they come across, or any non-human animal they think would look good in their home - often the large, healthy ones needed to keep the population strong. If we were really concerned about keeping non-human animals from starving, we would not hunt, but instead would take steps to reduce the animals' fertility. "Isn't hunting okay as long as I eat what I kill?" Did the fact that Jeffrey Dahmer ate his victims justify his crimes? What is done with a corpse after its murder doesn't lessen the victim's suffering. Furthermore, hunters are harming non-human animals other than the ones they kill and take home. Those who don't die outright often suffer disabling injuries, and some even die a slow agonising death from bullet wounds and starvation. Hunting also disrupts migration. Finally, what really matters is that killing is always unjustified unless absolutely necessary. Eating murdered animals is not necessary. "What about the people who have to hunt to survive?" We have no quarrel with subsistence hunters and fishers who truly have no choice in order to survive. However, in this day and age, "meat", "fur", and "leather" are not a necessary part of survival for the vast majority of us. Unfortunately, many "sport" hunters have borrowed from aboriginal tradition and manipulated it into a justification for killing non-human animals for recreation or profit. "Isn't hunting an old tradition? Isn't tradition important?" Hunting is a tradition as much as gladiator fighting was in ancient Rome. But humanity evolves, traditions change, and morality should be the standard of our actions. "Hasn't every major medical advance been attributable to experiments on non-human animals?" Medical historians have shown that improved nutrition, sanitation, and other behavioural and environmental factors - not anything learned from vivisection - are responsible for the decline in deaths since 1900 from the most common infectious diseases and that medicine had little to do with increased life expectancy. Many of the most important advances in health are attributable to human studies, among them anesthesia; bacteriology; germ theory; the stethoscope; morphine; radium; penicillin; artificial respiration; anticeptics; the CAT, MRI, and PET scans; the discovery of the relationships between cholesterol and heart disease and between smoking and cancer; the development of x-rays; and the isolation of the virus that caused AIDS. Vivisection played no role in these and many other developments. "But many treatments we have today were developed on non-human animals - like polio vaccines, for instance." In fact, two seperate bodies of work were done on polio - the in vitro work, which was awarded the Nobel Prize and which did not involve non-human animals, and the subsequent vivisections, in which close to 1 million non-human animals were killed and which the Nobel committee refused to recognise as anything more than wasteful. However, certainly, some medical developments were discovered through vivisection. But just because non-human animals were (ab)used doesn't mean they had to be used or that primitive techniques that were used in the 1800s are valid today. It's impossible to say where we would be if we had declined to experiment on non-human animals, because throughout medical history, very few resources have been devoted to non-animal research methods. In fact, because vivisection frequently gives misleading results with regard to human health, we'd probably be better off if we hadn't relied on it. But whatever the case, using innocent beings in any way for the benefit of others is always immoral. Would you sanction vivisection on unwanted human infants, even were they to produce medical breakthroughs? If the answer is no, so should be the answer to whether we may use non-human innocent individuals. Vivisection is morally correct only if it is performed on, and is the only means to benefit, the patient. "Scientists have the responsibility to use non-human animals to keep looking for cures for the diseases humans suffer from." More human lives could be saved and more suffering spared by educating people on the importance of avoiding fat and cholesterol, quitting smoking, reducing alcohol and other drug consumption, exercising regularly, and cleaning up the environment than by vivisection. Vivisection is primitive, and besides, we have modern technology and human clinical tests. Even if it could be proved that we have no alternative to using non-human animals - which it can't - as George Bernard Shaw once said, "You do not settle whether an experiment is justified or not by merely showing that it is of some use. The distinction is not between useful and useless experiments, but between barbarous and civilised behaviour." After all, there are some medical problems that can probably only be cured by testing on unwilling humans, but we don't do it, because we recognise that it would be wrong. "If we couldn't use non-human animals, wouldn't we have to test new drugs on people?" The choice isn't between non-humans and humans. There's no guarantee that drugs are safe just because they've been tested on non-human animals. Because of the physiological differences between humans and other animals, results from vivisection cannot be accurately extrapolated to humans, leaving us vulnerable to exposure to drugs that can cause serious side effects. Ironically, unfavourable vivisection results do not prevent a drug from being marketed for human use. So much evidence has accumulated about differences in the effects that chemicals have on non-humans and humans, that government officials often do not act on findings from non-human animal studies. In the last two decades, many drugs, including Phenacitin, Eferol, Oraflex, Suprol, and Selacryn, were taken off the market after causing hundreds of deaths and/or injuries. In fact, more than half the drugs the Food and Drug Administration approved between 1976 and 1985 were either removed from the market, or relabeled because of serious side effects. If the pharmaceutical industry switched from vivisection to quantum pharmacology and in vitro tests, we would have greater protection, not less. "If we didn't test on non-human animals, how would we conduct medical research?" Human clinical and epidemiological studies, cadavers, and computer simulators are faster, more reliable, less expensive, and more humane than vivisection. Ingenious scientists have developed, from human brain cells, a model "microbrain" with which to study tumors, as well as artificial skin and bone marrow. We can now test irritancy on egg membranes, produce vaccines from cell cultures, and perform pregnancy tests using blood samples instead of torturing and murdering rabbits. As Gordon Baxter, cofounder of Pharmagene Laboratories (a company that uses only human tissues and computers to develop and test drugs) says, "If you have information on human genes, what's the point of going back to non-human animals?" "Vivisection helps animals, too, by advancing veterinary science." This is like saying it's acceptable to experiment on poor children to benefit rich ones. The point is not whether vivisection can be useful to non-humans or humans; the point is that we do not have the moral right to inflict unnecessary suffering on innocent individuals who are at our mercy. "Don't medical students have to dissect non-human animals?" No, they don't. In fact, more and more medical students are becoming conscientious objectors, and many students now graduate without having used non-human animals; instead they learn by assisting experienced surgeons. In Great Britain, it is against the law for medical students to practice surgery on non-human animals, and British physicians are as competent as those educated elsewhere. Many of the leading US medical schools, including Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, now use innovative, clinical teaching methods instead of old-fashioned vivisection laboratories. Harvard, for instance, offers a Cardiac Anesthesia Practicum, where students observe human heart bypass operations, instead of vivisecting dogs; the Harvard staff who developed it have recommended that it be implemented elsewhere. "Should we throw out all the drugs that were developed and tested on non-human animals? Would you refuse to take them?" Unfortunately, a number of things in our society came about through others' exploitation. We can't change the past; those who have already suffered and died are lost. But what we can do is change the future by using non-exploitative research methods from now on. "Aren't cats and dogs killed in pounds anyway? Why not let them be used in experiments to save lives?" A painless death at an "animal shelter" is a far cry from a life of severe pain and deprivation in a laboratory before being killed by experimenters. "Would you allow an experiment that would sacrifice 10 non-human animals to save 10,000 humans?" Suppose the only way to save those 10,000 humans was to experiment on one mentally-challenged orphan. If saving humans is the goal, would that be worth it? Most people will agree that it is wrong to sacrifice one human for the "greater good" of others because it would violate that individual's rights. But when it comes to sacrificing non-human animals, the assumption is that human beings have rights while non-humans do not. Yet there is no logical reason to deny non-human animals the same rights that protect individual humans from being sacrificed for the common good. "What about experiments that don't harm non-human animals but simply observe them?" If there really is no harm, there should be no objection. But "no harm" means that the animals aren't kept isolated in barren, cold steel cages, because the stress and fear of confinement are harmful, as shown by the differences in blood pressure between caged and free animals. Caged animals also suffer by being prevented from performing their normal behaviours and social interactions. |
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