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The Tampa Area Animal Rights Meetup Group!
The purpose of The Animal Abuse Awareness Site is to inform, and stimulate new ways of thinking. Only through awareness and action can there be enlightenment for all living creatures. Animals can not speak for themselves. They do feel pain, feel emotion and are aware of the world around them. Primitive action toward animals must stop or our human race will never reach the next level of civilization and spiritual awareness.
Not long ago, and even today in some places, people who were considered "inferior" were locked up, enslaved and killed, just because they didn't belong to the same group as their oppressors. Nowadays, most of us are horrified by these practices and relieved that many of them are relegated to a dreadful memory. But we rarely think more deeply about the issue and realise that, for many more than we think, that horror is far from over. Many people try to dismiss this comparison between human and animal exploitation and accuse it of being exaggerated or even insulting. But is it really so outrageous? Let us have a look at the facts: both humans and cows, for example, can experience pleasure, satisfaction, pain and distress. So both have an interest in living, doing so in freedom, without being subjected to suffering. Having such interests is a sufficient reason for others to be duty bound to consider them. Someone's race, social group, sex or species shouldn't be a reason to discriminate against him or her. That’s why animal exploitation must be rejected.
Antispeciesism is certainly a new concept in the world in which we are living. In our society, animals are considered resources, or goods available for human use. Rarely do we give any thought to the suffering of animals, or reflect on our attitudes towards them, let alone consider the idea that they may be considered rights holders. We never consider whether this is a form of speciesism, that is, arbitrary discrimination against those individuals who belong to a certain species. In fact, even if we sometimes hear the term ‘animal rights’ we seldom know what is it all about.
While we show some concern for certain animals (such as dogs, cats, and some wild creatures), most others are treated with total disregard. But an animal need not be "cute" or human-like to have the ability to feel. A trout, a pig, a chicken, a frog or a lobster all have the capacity for experiencing joy or suffering pain or distress. Their lives matter to them as much as our lives do to us, and they will defend themselves if they can.
Whether someone is male or female; black, white or green; has two legs or four; swims, flies or walks, is irrelevant when it comes to the consideration we owe them all, and to whether they should be protected by rights which forbid that they be treated in ways that are harmful for them. Antispeciesism is based on this idea.
It is often claimed that we humans are "superior" to other animals because we are more intelligent. But how "intelligent" someone is should not affect our moral decisions, as this is not what determines her or his ability to feel. The fact that a young baby, a cow or a person with a severe mental disability is not able to read philosophy, do mathematical calculations or make moral judgements does not mean that their interests are any less relevant. What matters is that all of them know pain and pleasure. Only our interests can determine what rights we should have.
Disregarding the interests of animals
It is important to keep in mind that the situations in which animals' interests are frustrated don't constitute particular cases of unrelated abuse. Rather, they arise from a general attitude toward non-human animals prevalent in society today, namely, what is called speciesism. This prejudice against other animals overlooks the fact that they, like humans, are beings with the capacity to experience suffering and joy, as they too have nervous systems.
Sometimes it is claimed that other capacities are what matter, capacities such as the use of language and other "intellectual" activities. But if this were so, it would also mean that only certain humans matter. Some people, such as the mentally impaired or the newborn, would fall outside the scope of moral concern, as they don't meet those criteria. However, this is something most of us find unacceptable, and, as we have already seen, so-called intelligence in no way affects one's sentience. This is why the needs and interests of animals must be taken fully into account - including their interest in living - without this consideration being reduced to worrying only about some limited aspects of their welfare.
Animals’ right to life
It is sometimes argued that concern for animals does not necessarily entail concern for their lives. This is said as a justification for exploiting them, provided that a minimum of suffering is caused. But adopting such a position, apart from the practical difficulty of exploiting and killing someone without causing suffering, neglects the fundamental importance life has for animals.
All animals who have the capacity for enjoyment have an interest in living. The reason for this is simple - once we are dead, nothing good can happen to us any more, any possibility for further enjoyment disappears. Death is not harmful in that it is an unpleasant condition, because once dead we stop having any sensations. Death is harmful because it rules out any further possibility of positive experiences. This is why animals have an interest in living. In fact, animals, in normal situations, endure considerable amounts of pain in order to stay alive.
All sentient beings should have the right to live, and to do so in liberty and without suffering inflicted upon them. To achieve this, we must begin by abandoning the view that animals are resources intended for human ends.
Where does this lead us?
Using animals causes them suffering and death, and is therefore unjustifiable. Regulating this exploitation won't make any significant difference, and will only reinforce the idea that using animals is, in fact, right. The only solution is to give up treating animals as things from which humans can benefit and to establish legal rights that will safeguard their interests. We can all make a great difference by changing aspects of our lifestyle that involve the use of animals, as this will spare countless animals from suffering and death.
The 5 Freedoms1.freedom from thirst and hunger
2.freedom from fear and distress
3.freedom from discomfort
4.freedom from pain, injury or disease
5.freedom to express normal behaviour
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FAQ
1- Don't animals already have rights?
The current legal system draws a line between "rights-holders" and "goods" (things). At present, animals are considered things, that is, property. Legally, property cannot have rights. There are certain regulations as to how animals can be exploited. For example, the law states that an animal must be stunned at the slaughterhouse before being killed (something that will not, in fact, protect his or her interests). But this does not mean that they have rights (after all, he or she can be killed perfectly legally in that slaughterhouse).
Similarly, in the past there were certain limitations to the ways human slaves could be used, and today laws do exist limiting the way in which, for instance, the owner of a piece of land can use it. However, neither slaves nor pieces of land have ever had rights. A being with rights cannot be considered property, nor be used as such.
2- Does defending animal rights mean one has to be an "animal lover"?
No. It is not necessary to feel a special sympathy for someone in order to respect him or her as a subject with individual interests. Justice is not a matter of sympathy, but should be based on impartial consideration of our interests. If the contrary were the case, a judge could convict or clear the accused according to how sympathetic he or she finds them - something we tend to find unjust.
On the other hand, no one can be asked to love another, whether it is his or her neighbour, an unknown person, a frog or a squirrel. No one can be asked to be an "animal lover". And there are no reasons to do so either, since personal likes and dislikes are a private matter. Nevertheless, what we can be expected to do is to avoid harming others, whether they be animals or humans.
3- Why should animals concern us when so many humans are suffering in the world? Surely we must help them first?
This question presupposes that humans' interests are more important than those of other animals, something which there is no reason to believe. Animals suffer no less than humans, and we must not ignore or undervalue their interests. Would we really say that we shouldn't be concerned with the suffering of women, because men are still suffering? Or that the anguish of those with skin of another colour is unimportant, because many of those who share our colour are suffering in some way? One wrong can't justify another, and the ill-fortune of many humans doesn't mean that we can excuse animal exploitation or consider it of less importance.
And let us not forget that the number of animals killed for food in one week outweighs the actual number of the whole human population!
4- Surely what should be done is killing animals without causing them pain?
Let's imagine that we were in their place, would we find it acceptable to be killed, provided that we felt no pain? Most likely not.
If a being has the ability to experience joy, death means completely thwarting that possibility. That's why every being with the ability to feel pleasure has an interest in living. And that's why, apart from there being no justification in making someone suffer, killing a sentient animal is unacceptable.
5- But animals have always been used for some purpose!
The fact that something has been happening over a long period of time, or "always", does not make it acceptable. There are many examples of this. In certain parts of the world, young girls are circumcised in accordance with deep-rooted traditions. In many other places, women are considered to be the property of their fathers or husbands. Slavery and racism is far from eradicated. The claim that something has "always been done" is no justification for injustice.
6- I think the comparison you make between humans and animals is insulting. Do you really think that people are just like animals?
In terms of the abilities they possess, some humans resemble some nonhumans. For example, in a child, the capacity to reason is very much like that of many nonhuman animals. The same goes for adult humans; there are significant similarities with other animals. However, the crucial point is that all beings that can feel matter, and, in this respect, humans and other animals are all alike.
But what this question really reveals are certain prejudices about animals. To "be an animal" is considered something negative, and that is why some find any association offensive (in spite of the fact that humans are animals, too!). In our daily speech, we use certain expressions that betray this attitude: to be "dumb as an ass", "dirty as a pig", "sly as a fox". People use "chicken" to mean "coward", using this as an insult, and cruelty as "brutality" or "bestiality" (from brute and beast, respectively, which are both used as deprecatory terms for "animal").
Similarly, some men find it offensive to be compared to women, and expressions like "cry like a woman" are commonplace. "Nigger" is, unfortunately, not uncommonly used as an insult. However, this does not mean that the objects of such similes - pigs, chicken, women, black people- are in some way inferior. Rather, the use of derogatory language like this exemplifies the bias there is against certain individuals - nonhuman and human.
Being a human is not being "better" than some other animal, it is simply being different in some respects and similar in others, in the same way as being a cow is different in some ways from being a sheep.
7- Wouldn't it be more productive to protest against practices like bloodsports, which people are already aware of, than, say, the eating of animal products?
Every year, many animals die victims of bloodsports, but the number of animals killed for, say, food is hundreds of times bigger. The difference is overwhelming - clearly the eating of animals is what causes the greatest amount of suffering and death for nonhumans. Consequently, this issue needs to be addressed, if we want to change things significantly for animals.
On the other hand, it is quite true that eating animals is more deep-rooted than bloodsports and other similar practices are. But precisely for this reason we must address the issue, if our aim is to eradicate the concept of animals as resources. Much of the criticism bloodsports receive is motivated by the "excessive" cruelty of the activity, not because it is considered bad in itself to use animals. On the other hand, few people give up eating meat while they support bloodsports.
8- Do you think all living beings should have rights?
To be a "living being" is not the important factor in considering whether one should have rights or not - but the possibility for experiencing joy and suffering is. Life is valuable for a sentient being because it implies a possibility to have positive experiences. Thus death is harmful in the sense that the one who dies is deprived of experiences she or he could have had, not because of any suffering caused after death - after all, once we are dead we cannot suffer anymore.
Nowadays, someone is considered dead when declared brain dead. However, to be accurate, the rest of his or her organism is still alive (and could be kept alive artificially if connected to a life-support machine). But the subject that the person was is considered dead, because she will never recover consciousness again: her body, though alive, cannot be conscious of what is happening to it, nor can it feel any pain or pleasure. The subject that used to live in that body has ceased to exist.
For death to affect us (that is, for our life to have an intrinsic value), we must necessarily be able to experience things. That's why animals (all those with the ability to have positive and negative experiences, not protozoa or sponges, for example, which are biologically classified as animals, but do not even have nervous systems) must have the right to life. This is not the case for a virus, a plant or someone whose brain is dead, however, because, although they are living organisms, they lack interests of their own.
9- What is the difference between the movements for animal rights and animal welfare?
The animal welfare movement accepts the idea that non-human animals can be used as resources, as long as as little suffering as possible is inflicted upon them. The animal welfare movement is speciesist, in that it accepts that non-human animals' interests can be ignored or undervalued when there is a perceived human interest in doing so. In practice, the animal welfare movement seeks to regulate the ways in which animals are used. Examples of welfare demands are that animals be kept in a bigger space than a cage provides, that transport to the slaughterhouse should not exceed a certain amount of hours and that killing should be preceded by effective stunning.
In contrast, the animal rights movement defends the concept that animals have significant interests that should be respected and protected by legal rights. In practice, the animal rights movement aims at progressively abandoning the use of animals so that fewer and fewer animals have to suffer and die for purposes such as, food, clothing, experimentation or entertainment. It seeks to abolish the use of animals altogether. Just as human slavery should not be regulated but abolished, so should animal slavery. All beings with the capacity to experience suffering and joy have their own interests, and should therefore be granted what justice demands.
10- What is speciesism?
Speciesism (a term coined some 30 years ago) means moral discrimination based on belonging to a certain species. Undervaluing the legitimate interests of a being because he or she does not belong to a given species means that one is speciesist. And this is an arbitrary and unjustifiable attitude.
Like racism and sexism, it means dismissing other individuals' interests simply because these other individuals don't happen to belong to the same species (or have the same skin colour or sex) as oneself. Clearly, these characteristics (sex, species, skin colour) are not morally relevant. Nor is intelligence a reason for discrimination - in the throes of pain, understanding algebra is of little comfort, and heavenly bliss is not limited to those who write poetry. The capacity to experience suffering and joy is the only thing that matters in taking a moral decision to recognise the interests of others.
11- But we are doing animals a favour by breeding them for food. Otherwise they would not exist!
Would we justify breeding children for our own benefit and use, which would be slavery, just because they wouldn't exist otherwise? The act of bringing someone into the world does not make us his or her owners, nor can it be a justification for not giving him or her the respect and consideration we owe others.
12- Do animals such as crustaceans and molluscs have nervous systems?
Some do; others, like zooplankton, don't. As with other animals (such as birds, fish, mammals and reptiles), some molluscs (octopi, squid and snails, among others) and crustaceans (like prawns, shrimps, crabs or lobsters) have nervous systems extending all over their bodies (with visceral, pedal and cerebral ganglia - that is, nerve knots). When we consider that having a nervous system is the basis for the capacity to feel, and in accordance with present scientific knowledge of this issue, it seems unreasonable to think these animals are not sentient.
13- Saying that the intellectual capacities of infants or humans with mental disabilities equal those of animals means you are degrading those human beings
It is the other way around! Those who maintain that in order to have rights it is necessary to possess certain intellectual capacities are the ones who seriously lack respect towards all human beings without them, because their argument denies these people moral consideration. Those who morally discriminate against animals on the basis of their intellectual abilities defend a position that implicitly discriminates against many human beings as well, although this wasn't their initial intention.
Being granted rights must not depend on whether or not one has certain cognitive abilities. So those who defend speciesism by an appeal to intelligence or other capacities related to it, insult and discriminate against mentally disabled people or little children, just as they do against nonhuman animals.
14- Children shouldn't be raised as vegetarians. They should have the right to make their own minds up, don't you think?
Meat eating is no more "natural" than vegetarianism. Feeding kids meat means feeding them certain values, just as feeding them vegetarian food does.
However, it should also be pointed out that there are many things we try to teach children; for example, not to hit or insult others, not to steal, to be considerate to other people. So why would it be wrong to teach them not to cause others suffering, even if those others are nonhuman?
15- If other animals eat each other, why shouldn't we eat animals?
Many nonhuman animals do things we wouldn't accept if one of us were to do them. For example, male lions sometimes eat their rivals' offspring. Nevertheless, no one claims it would be right for us to do that. Since we can think morally, we have duties. We can choose not to eat others (and eating animals obviously involves harming them since we are denying them the right to live). Those who cannot reflect on their actions, on the other hand, cannot have responsibilities either.
However, the fact that we have responsibilities does not imply, of course, that our interests are more important than those of others - the responsibilities and rights of each individual correspond to their capacities. A mentally disabled human, a baby or a nonhuman animal are not capable of understanding the meaning of duties and responsibilities, but they can suffer harm and obviously they have an interest in avoiding this. All those with interests should have rights to protect them, and all those who can reflect on their actions have responsibilities.
16- The exploitation of animals is massive and widespread, that's just how things are, and it isn't going to change
The same could have been said at other times in history: for example, when women were denied the vote, during feudalism and institutionalized slavery. Over time, the social situation and mentalities change, and, from generation to generation, circumstances and structures that seemed unchangeable have, nevertheless, gradually disappeared. Although we would all like things to happen sooner, this is a slow process. But that is also precisely why we should start now to demand rights for nonhuman animals.
17- OK, so those who discriminate against nonhuman animals have speciesist attitudes. But then, those who discriminate against some nonhuman animals over others of different species must be speciesist too?
Certainly. Giving more importance to the interests of a certain animal just because he or she is member of a certain species is always ethically unjustifiable. If an ape or a dog has an interest equal to that of a fish, a bird or a pig, there is no reason to favour one over the other. It is arbitrary discrimination, which, just as the human-centred form of speciesism, lacks justification.
18- If we all went vegetarian wouldn't we need to grow many more crops, so that there would be neither food nor room, not just for us, but for nonhuman animals too?
It's just the opposite! Animals raised for consumption (which are literally produced, otherwise they wouldn't exist) have to be bred. And the amount of food needed for feeding an animal that is going to be eaten is much bigger than the one we will need if we eat vegetables directly. More than 8 kilos of food are needed for a calf to gain about one kilo. A piece of land used for growing vegetables can produce up to 15 times the amount of proteins than another pasture or forage. Hence it is animal husbandry that makes it necessary to cultivate more land. This, in turn, means deforestation of huge virgin land extensions and death for the other animals that used to live there.
19- Well, maybe we shouldn't harm animals. But I've eaten and used animal products my whole life. Just the thought of giving that up istoo much...
It is natural that we might find it difficult to change habits we have lived with for a long time. Sometimes it is easy to feel overwhelmed by such difficulties and it is tempting to look away and ignore reality. But all it really takes is a bit of willpower at the beginning, and it soon becomes normal and easy to avoid animal products. To take those steps seems more difficult than it really is. Once you start to learn about vegetarianism, you will discover what a variety of dishes it offers, many of which you might not even have known before. And if you have problems giving up certain dishes, there are plenty of substitute products which imitate the flavour and texture of animal products and are a good help in changing one's diet (veggie burgers and sausages, soya yoghurts, animal-free sandwich spreads etc.).
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For compassion toward animals and humans alike,
Teresa Starshine
"If only we can overcome cruelty, to human and animal, with love and compassion we shall stand at the threshold of a new era in human moral and spiritual evolution - and realize, at last, our most unique quality: humanity." - Jane Goodall
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What's Wrong With Dairy and Eggs?
The "Free-Range" Myth
The Protein Myth
What's Wrong with Leather, Wool & Down?
Ecological Effects of Animal Agriculture
Health Concerns about Dairy Products
Protecting Your Bones
Vegan Holiday Recipes
Punk rock "Stop Animal Cruelty" leaflet
Why Vegan?
What's Fishy About Seafood?
COK Vegetarian Starter Kit
MFA Vegetarian Starter Kit
PETA Vegetarian Starter Kit
Dairy-Free & Delicious Recipes
Quick & Easy Vegan Recipes
Christianity and Vegetarianism
What Would Jesus Eat?
Guide to Becoming an Activist
Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating [the entire book!]
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