Newsweek: California voters have put the animal-rights movement squarely in the mainstream. Will we all soon be vegans?

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http://www.newsweek.com/id/169881

The Rights Of Animals

California voters have put the animal-rights

movement squarely in the mainstream. Will we all

soon be vegans?

Peter Singer

NEWSWEEK Published Nov 19, 2008

 

The notion that animals should have rights was

widely ridiculed when it was first advocated in

the 1970s. Now it is getting more respect. The

movement has gained tens of millions of adherents

and has already persuaded the European Union to

require that all hens have room to stretch their

wings, perch and lay their eggs in a nest box,

and to phase out keeping pigs and veal calves in

individual crates too narrow for them to walk or

turn around. And earlier this month Californians

voted 63 percent to 37 percent for a measure

that, beginning in 2015, gives all farm animals

the right to stand up, lie down, turn around and

fully extend their limbs. The state's 45 major

egg producers will have to rip out the cages that

now hold 19 million hens, and either put in new

and larger cages with fewer birds or, more

likely, keep the birds on the floor in large

sheds. California's sole large-scale pig-factory

farm will also have to give all its pigs room to

turn around.

 

Pressure on other states to grant the same basic

freedoms may prove irresistible. Many people see

this movement as a logical continuation of the

fight against racism and sexism, and believe that

the concept of animal rights will soon be as

commonplace as equal pay and opportunities for

women and minorities. If that happens-and I

believe it will-the effects on the food we eat,

how we produce it and the place of animals in our

society will be profound.

 

If this sounds radical, so did suffrage and civil

rights a few decades ago. The notion that we

should recognize the rights of animals living

among us rests on a firm ethical foundation. A

sentient being is sentient regardless of which

species it happens to belong to. Pain is pain,

whether it is the pain of a cat, a dog, a pig or

a child.

 

Consider how widely humans differ in their mental

abilities. A typical adult can reason, make moral

choices and do many things (like voting) that

animals obviously cannot do. But not all human

beings are capable of reason, not all are morally

responsible and not all are capable of voting.

And yet we go out of our way to claim that all

humans have rights. What, then, justifies our

withholding at least some rights from nonhuman

animals? Defenders of the status quo have found

that a difficult question to answer.

 

If animals do have rights, what rights would

those be? The most basic right any sentient being

can have is for his or her interests to be given

equal consideration. After that, things get more

complicated. Some advocates think that all

animals have a right to life. Others give more

weight to the lives of beings such as

chimpanzees, which are capable of understanding

that they have a life, and of having hopes and

desires directed toward the future. The

movement's supporters agree that the way we treat

animals now, as test subjects and factory-farm

products, is flagrantly wrong.

 

If society were gradually to accept animal

rights, it would spell dramatic changes. Some

people might accept humanely raised meat, eggs

and dairy products, if the animals had good

lives, living outdoors in social groups of a size

natural to the particular species. But this would

most likely prove to be an interim stage. As the

demand for animal products dwindles, the meat

industry would breed fewer chickens, turkeys,

pigs and cattle. Eventually the only remaining

beef cattle, sheep and pigs would be small herds

preserved so that we can take the grandchildren

to see what these once abundant animals look

like. Factory farming-for meat, eggs or

milk-would disappear. If we are to continue to

eat meat, we'll have to rely on scientists who

are now trying to grow meat in vats. When they

succeed, it will be the real thing, grown from

animal cells, not a soy-based substitute, and it

might even be indistinguishable from the meat we

eat now. But since it would involve no animals,

and hence no suffering or killing, there will be

no ethical objections.

 

Milk and cheese are no easier than meat to

reconcile. Cows will not give milk unless they

are made pregnant each year, and if the calves

are left with their mothers, there won't be much

milk for humans. The separation of the cow and

her calf causes distress to both. Hens are not so

concerned about the removal of their eggs, and

genuinely free-range hens appear to have a good

life, but male chicks have to be disposed of, and

no commercial egg producer allows hens to live

beyond the point at which their rate of laying

declines. That's why animal-rights advocates

today tend to be vegans.

 

Where animals are now used for research, we must

find alternatives. In Europe, cell and tissue

cultures have already replaced some product

testing of live animals, and that will increase

dramatically once harmful research on animals is

put ethically out of bounds. Research using

animals may not cease entirely, but in a

nonspeciesist world it could continue only under

the same strict ethical safeguards that we use

for research on human subjects who can't give

their consent.

 

Our greatest difficulty in respecting other

species may lie in our quest for land. The animal

movement forces us to consider that land we do

not use is the habitat of other sentient beings,

and we must do what we can to allow them to

continue to live on it, including limiting our

own population growth. Even wilderness presents a

problem. Are humans ethically bound to prevent

animals from killing other animals? To

contemplate interfering with the workings of

ecosystems would be presumptuous, at least for

now. We will do better to concentrate, first, on

lessening our own harmful impact on our domestic

animals.

 

Singer is professor of bioethics at Princeton.

His latest book, " The Life You Can Save: Acting

Now to End World Poverty, " will be published in

March.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/169881

© 2008

--

Kim Bartlett, President of Animal People, Inc.

Postal mailing address: P.O. Box 960, Clinton WA 98236 U.S.A.

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