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Throughout the first half of the 20th Century, animal owners improved standards of care for their livestock, lab animals, and pets, tossing out harsh, ineffective, and inefficient methods and embracing a kinder, gentler stewardship of animals. Some people talked about the "rights" of animals to food, water, shelter, and care, but the emphasis was on improving the lives of animals utilized by people, not on eliminating human use altogether.
However, by the late 1960s, the term animal rights had taken on new meaning. Giving rights to animals had become a social and political cause, a moral imperative, which demanded that society adopt a new ethic for human/animal relationships. This new philosophy opposed all use of animals, no matter how humane, no matter how responsible, no matter how much benefit was lost to humanity and other animals from such avoidance.
Today, despite the public's rejection of animal rights as determined by evaluating their own use of animals, animal rights philosophy is a dominant factor in popular culture. This disconnect is caused in part because many people, even people who label themselves as animal rights supporters, don't understand the true beliefs and goals of the animal rights movement.
To bring this topic into clearer focus, NAIA offers this quick tour of the differences between animal rights and animal welfare, two distinct philosophies.
Animal welfare celebrates the bond between animals and humans; animal rights seeks to sever that bond.
"It is time we demand an end to the misguided and abusive concept
of animal ownership. The first step on this long, but just, road would be ending
the concept of pet ownership."
-Elliot Katz, President, In Defense of Animals, "In Defense of Animals," Spring
1997
Animal welfare grows and improves as we learn more and more about animals,
their behavior, and their management. Animal rights remains stagnant with its
dogma of "no more animal use ever."
"Let us allow the dog to disappear from our brick and concrete
jungles--from our firesides, from the leather nooses and chains by which we
enslave it." - John Bryant, Fettered Kingdoms: An Examination of A Changing
Ethic (Washington, DC: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), 1982),
p. 15.
Animal welfare is inclusive; its belief in stewardship of species and individual
animals embraces a human connection to the Earth through interaction with animals.
Animal rights is divisive; by separating the destiny of man from the destiny
of animals, the movement shows it cares nothing for the Earth.
"...the animal rights movement is not concerned about species extinction.
An elephant is no more or less important than a cow, just as a dolphin is
no more important than a tuna...In fact, many animal rights advocates would
argue that it is better for the chimpanzee to become extinct than to be exploited
continually in laboratories, zoos and circuses." (Barbara Biel, The Animals'
Agenda, Vol 15 #3.)
Animal welfare makes room for a broad spectrum of animal relationships that
include raising and using animals for food, fiber, labor, and medical and behavioral
research; managing animal populations by hunting; keeping animals in zoos and
other educational venues; and enjoying animal sports and animals in movies,
circuses, and on stage.
Animal rights opposes all traditional relationships with animals, from eating
meat and wearing leather and wool to biomedical research, pet ownership, dog
and cat breeding, circuses, zoos, hunting, trapping, ranching, fishing, and
learning about animals by hands-on experience.
"If the death of one rat cured all diseases, it wouldn't make any
difference to me." -Chris DeRose, director, Last Chance for Animals, as
quoted in Elizabeth Venant and David Treadwell, "Biting Back," Los Angeles Times,
April 12, 1990, p. E12.
"My dream is that people will come to view eating an animal as
cannibalism." - Henry Spira, director, Animal Rights International, as quoted
in Barnaby J. Feder, "Pressuring Purdue," New York Times Magazine, November
26, 1989, p. 192.
"Founded in 1980, PETA operates under the simple principle that
animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment."
- PeTA's website, August 2000
Animal welfare requires humane treatment of animals on farms and ranches, in
circuses and rodeos, and in homes, kennels, catteries, laboratories, and wherever
else animals are kept. Animal welfare endorses a quick death when death is inevitable
and a scientific approach to commercial use and management of wild populations.
Animal rights works for the day when we will have no interactions with animals
but will view them from afar.
"I don't approve of the use of animals for any purpose that involves
touching them - caging them" - Dr. Neal Barnard, Physician's Committee for
Responsible Medicine
"We don't want cleaner cages, we want empty cages." - Tom Regan,
animal rights leader
In short, animal welfare works to enrich and celebrate human/animal interactions
in an atmosphere of concern for animal well-being; animal rights yearns for
the day when human life will be impoverished because we can no longer enjoy
the company of non-human animals.
NAIA presents a sample animal
welfare resolution to adapt for use in your state.
Sites that Promote animal welfare:
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