Human Animal and Nonhuman Animal Rights.

national | rights, freedoms and repression | press release Sunday November 04, 2007 16:18 by rogy

An Emerging New Movement for the 21st century.

Heard about this new idea called “animal rights”? Sure, you say, heard about that idea years ago; groups of people against cruel animal experiments, circuses and fur shops. Aren’t these the people who claim that animal testing is wrong because it does not work? All that is true: but permit me to introduce you to a relatively new idea about nonhuman animals and their rights.

It is called Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach and it is mainly based on the work of North American philosopher and lawyer Gary Francione. While Francione has been writing about animal rights since the 1980s in fact, as has another rights-based philosopher, Tom Regan, the abolitionist approach has only recently emerged as akin to a social movement with a website, videos, audio presentations and texts in several languages.

Abolitionist animal rights is a non-violent position that takes human and nonhuman animal rights seriously. This makes the approach distinctive and fresh: as its main claim about human-nonhuman relations, it characterises sentient nonhuman animals as rights bearers and states that what human animals do to nonhuman ones on a systematic and routine basis are rights violations. Professor Francione’s position is based on one claim: that nonhuman animals have the right not to be the property of human beings. In law, there are two categories, persons and things. Currently, although corporations and municipalities can be regarded as legal persons, nonhumans are said to be things that, like dvds, can be bought, sold, swapped and so on. Although regarded as ‘things’ in law, nonhuman animals are also recognised as sentient individuals who can suffer both physically and psychologically. This places them in the unique position of being feeling and thinking items of property. Those who illegally remove animals from vivisection laboratories, for example, are committing theft. If a pet dog is deliberately injured, the crime is criminal damage. The abolitionist approach to animal rights directly challenges the property status of nonhuman individuals. This perspective, therefore, differs from other advocacy positions about human relations with other animals, including many of those currently operating under the name of “animal rights”.

The existing animal movement is largely made up of people who tend to adhere to a group of non-rights theories about human-nonhuman relations. For example, eco-feminist ideas, anarchic theories and, most of all, the utilitarian animal welfare stance seen primarily in the work of Peter Singer, the latter articulated by large organisations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA). A look at the websites and other materials produced by such groups reveal important differences with the abolitionist approach. Most obviously, these groups do not make claims about rights bearing nonhumans and tend not to mention rights violations. They focus instead on welfarist concerns about cruelty to animals and acts that fail to avoid “unnecessary suffering”, the cornerstone concept of animal welfarism. Currently, such groups are supporting plans to alter the way chickens are housed and slaughtered, as they promote ‘cage-free’ eggs over battery eggs. The abolitionist approach is more direct, stating that taking nonhuman animal interests seriously means adopting a vegan lifestyle just as there are lifestyle implications of supporting the notion of human rights. As Tom Regan points out, animal rights is about empty cages, not larger ones, it is about emptying animal prisons, such as laboratories, farms, and circus “beast wagons”. It is not about reforming the use of rightholders, it is about ending the use of nonhuman rightholders by human beings. Abolitionist animal rights advocates say that they cannot and will not become embroiled in the business of regulating atrocities.

As said, current animal organisations throughout the world, whether generic “animal rights” groups or specialist anti-vivisection mobilisations, say that they are mainly opposed to human use of nonhuman animals when such use is “cruel”. Readers are likely to be familiar with these sorts of welfarist or non-rights-based claims but not used to the claims of abolitionist animal rightists precisely due to the fact that few animal advocacy groups, unlike those in the human rights movement, frame their positions on human-nonhuman relations in terms of rights violations.

When in 1944 Donald Watson founded The Vegan Society in Britain, he spoke of the need to “ripen up” the public to a new idea. Sixty years later, being a vegan – the baseline moral stance of abolitionist animal rightists – is no longer a problem and those who do not eat flesh are no longer expected to frequent restaurants called “Cranks”. There are numerous cafes and restaurants in Ireland that cater for vegans. And – sixty years later – some more “ripening up” is beginning. For one thing, there is no Vegan Society in Ireland, an issue that should be addressed sooner rather than later. This article may be your first encounter with an emerging new movement that honestly and openly claims that nonhuman animals are rightsholders in need of the protections that negative rights provide. How ripe do you feel?