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Ingrid Newkirk of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has written a PETA Alert concerning PETA’s position on “happy” exploitation.

This Alert reads in part:

PETA has pushed hard and will continue to push hard to reduce the sum total of suffering in the meat, dairy, and egg industries—because that makes a huge difference if you are a pig or a chicken on a factory farm. We’ve stopped PETA protests outside Burger King or McDonald’s restaurants when those companies agreed to reforms, but that doesn’t mean that we would ever suggest eating meat from Burger King or anywhere else—because we know that massive suffering still goes into every bite. Yes, it’s better to pay extra for an egg from a chicken who had a marginally less hideous life than one who suffered more, but we must do better by animals. In fact, we have yet to find a “humane” factory farm where animals don’t have their tails cut off and their ears painfully notched, where they aren’t debeaked, dehorned, or castrated without anesthesia, where they aren’t kept in crowded conditions without sunlight or fresh air, where they don’t have their beloved children taken away from them, where they aren’t denied the companionship of others, where they aren’t sent to a feedlot, or where they are instantly dispatched without the trauma of capture, the horror of transportation, or the terror of seeing other animals killed before suffering the same fate.

PETA has pushed for vegan living since our inception in 1980. Our motto is: “Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.” With so many vegan cookbooks and meal options available and with programs like the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine’s 21-Day Vegan Kickstart and our wildly popular vegan starter kit, we can all help animals—and not miss a thing. Let’s live and let live, and tell others to come along with us, reminding them that animals have emotions and needs just as human beings do.

There is no such thing as humane meat. Giving animals a few more inches of living space is simply not enough. Animals deserve more. The momentum is on our side, but it will take every one of us to bring this change about by being active advocates of animal rights. Thank you!

I acknowledge with gratitude that Ingrid Newkirk introduced me to veganism. Although I had become a vegetarian in the late 1970s, I continued to eat dairy and eggs, believing that it was necessary to do so given that I was not eating meat, poultry, or fish. I had never even heard the word “vegan” and I was unaware that it was possible to live a healthy life (let alone a healthier life) without consuming any animal products. I met Ingrid quite by chance in October 1982–30 years ago this month–and she literally threw away all of the dairy products in my refrigerator! I have been vegan ever since. I appreciate what she did and I have no doubt that she is committed to veganism.

But PETA has changed dramatically since those early days. In addition to its steady stream of sexist campaigns that merely reinforce thinking of others as commodities, which characterizes both sexism and speciesism, and its position on the no-kill movement, there can be no doubt that PETA has become deeply involved in the whole “happy” or “humane” exploitation movement.

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To those who support animal welfare:

It’s not, as many of you claim, a choice of helping animals “today” or “now,” or letting them suffer while we achieve a much greater number of vegans.

It is a choice of whether we are going to:

A. put resources into expensive campaigns that go on for years and, if they don’t fail completely:

* result in some modification that is then supposedly phased in over more years and usually never enforced anyway; and
* even if implemented and enforced, result in, at best, a de minimis change akin to putting padding on a water board; and
* do nothing to change thinking about the moral status of animals and, indeed, reinforce the status of animals as commodities or things that exist for human use;
* have the counterproductive effect of making people more comfortable about consuming animals; and
* make animal advocates partners with institutional exploiters whom they ask animal advocates to support

or

B. engage in creative, nonviolent advocacy that promotes veganism as the moral baseline, and that will reduce demand and effect a paradigm shift in our thinking about animals.

Every second of time and cent spent on doing A is a second less or a cent less spent on doing B.

A and B are different, and mutually exclusive, ways of thinking about animal ethics.

Neither A nor B is immediate; neither helps animals “now,” and both involve incremental efforts. The question is which you choose to do.

*****

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

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.

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Fantasy #1: The Humane Society of the United States is not promoting the “compassionate” consumption of meat.

The HSUS caption with the Facebook post: “More great news for pigs! “Like” this to give props to these companies for doing the right thing. :)”

So let’s support companies marketing meat and animal products that are doing “the right thing.” Think about that message.

And HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle makes it very clear that “happy” meat is a morally good thing.

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

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