Back to Winter 2010

Imagineer Ask

with Gary L. Francione & Tom Regan

The animal rights movement has experienced many setbacks because of overtly offensive tactics. These incidents have occurred with such frequency that many unaffiliated observers have forever turned their backs on the issue. Would this movement be better served by calm, conservative lobbying than inflammatory, theatrical demonstration?

Conducted by Alexander D. Farris

Gary L. Francione
Distinguished Professor of Law, Rutgers University School of Law—Newark, author of Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation (2008), and leader of Abolitionist Approach to animal rights.

  We live in a society in which most people consume or use animals and animal products. In the United States alone, we kill and eat more than ten billion animals annually, and this staggering number does not include fish. Many, if not most, people regard exploiting animals as something sanctioned or even encouraged by their religious tradition. In any event, exploiting animals is the default or normal position. In such a context, almost any sort of advocacy—including the most conservative—can be and often is regarded as offensive. It is, however, clear that animal advocates have, in at least two ways, exacerbated the negative reaction to the animal rights movement.                                    

      First, the largest animal advocacy organization PETA has very deliberately turned serious discussion about animal exploitation into a matter of media-driven theatrics that seem obsessed with sexist imagery and themes. This began with its “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” campaign, and it is now the case that just about any issue that PETA focuses on will involve a greater or lesser number of naked women—sometimes with a male participation in an attempt to avoid the very charge I am now making—doing things from sitting in cages to being wrapped in packaging resembling that in which meat is sold. Sexism does not just offend people who are socially or politically conservative; many of my friends on the left resist taking the issue of animal exploitation seriously because of PETA’s sexist antics.

  Second, although the overwhelming number of animal advocates does not support violence, there is a small but very vocal minority who do. Putting aside the moral issues raised by using violence, these people do not seem to understand that nothing will ever change until we persuade people that animal exploitation cannot be justified and we decrease demand. Vandalizing a butcher’s shop will have no practical effect in a society in which people are going to continue to consume meat and violence only reinforces the public impression that animal rights is a “fringe” issue that is being promoted by violent extremists.

  If we are ever going to address animal exploitation in a productive way, we must engage in calm, non-violent discussion. The argument in favor of abolishing animal exploitation is very compelling; theatrics and violence do nothing but diminish the force of the rights position. 

Tom Regan

Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, North Carolina State University & author of The Case for Animal Rights (1983, 1985, 2004)

  The question posed is a fair one about whose correct answer people of good will can disagree. However, the question can be faulted because it diverts attention from a more important presupposition. As is true of all moral justice debates, the debate concerning the rights of animals would be best served if everyone agreed on a set of facts. Unfortunately, such unanimity is noteworthy for its absence.

  For example, spokespersons for the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) claim that the ALF is responsible for millions of dollars of property damage—damage that, their spokespersons say, is part of the ALF's "nonviolent direct action" approach to liberating animals. Some animal rights advocates, myself included, think that the ALF's acts of arson and other forms of property destruction are not nonviolent. Advocates who share my view think ALF spokespersons should accept rather than deny this fact.

  We also think people who speak for the major animal user industries should accept the fact that these industries are the agents of violence. For example, consider what happens to animals used in biomedical research and testing. They are drowned, suffocated, and starved to death; they have their limbs severed and their organs crushed; they are burned, exposed to radiation, and used in experimental surgeries; they are shocked, raised in isolation, exposed to weapons of mass destruction, and rendered blind or paralyzed; they suffer induced heart attacks, ulcers, and seizures.

  Are these animals the victims of violence? Are they subjected to “physical force, usually intended to cause injury or destruction?” Animal rights advocates who share my view think that spokespersons for the biomedical industry should accept rather than deny this fact. Indeed, day in and day out, we believe that the greatest amount of violence that occurs in the world occurs because of what humans do to other animals. As for the violence done by the ALF? It amounts to a rain drop compared to an ocean.

  As I stated above, the debate concerning the rights of animals would be best served if everyone agreed on a set of facts. This is not something spokespersons for the ALF or for the major animal user industries have been prepared to do. Not before, but after they do so, it would be apposite to ask whether the animal rights movement [would] “be better served by calm, conservative lobbying than inflammatory, theatrical demonstration."

Next: Latin American foreign policy with Author and Northwestern University Professor Stephen Kinzer

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