Founded in 1957, Friends of Animals is a US headquartered, international, non-profit 501 (c)(3) membership organization working to protect animals from abuse and institutionalized exploitation. Today, we are one of the most respected activist groups worldwide. FoA has active members in all 50 states of the United States and in many countries. We have offices in Conneticut, New York, Washington, D.C., and Toronto, Canada.What is Animal Rights? (From "Capers in the Churchyard," by Lee Hall, legal director for Friends of Animals):Animal rights is the development of respect for the interests of conscious beings in living on their terms rather than under human dominion.Animals rights, like ethics, is understood most clearly not as a plural term, but in the singular. Animal rights is not a list of things we give, but an attitude of respect.The arguments against animal rights are largely irrelevant to its essence. Conscious beings are not attempting to get into our social contracts, enjoy privileges without corresponding responsibilities, or impose complex rules of conduct upon us.Animal rights, as distinguished from the extension of humane welfare provisions, is fundamentally an issue of justice. The more justice prevails, the less charity is needed. Thus, the guiding principle here isn't to help them, but to aspire not to interfere. At essence, it would mean their privacy from our intrusions.The advent of animal rights philosophy in a truly radical, egalitarian form would defy millenia of social conditioning. It is, at essence, the repudiation of violence, of seeing others as instruments to our ends, of taking advantage.The advent of animal rights philosophy would mean the most comprehensive peace movement ever known. Not only would it turn swords into ploughshares; it would dedicate those ploughshares to an agriculture of peace.Animal rights is the cultivation of ethics without borders.
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