Animal liberation movement

The animal liberation movement or animal rights movement, also sometimes called the animal personhood movement, is the worldwide movement of individual activists, academics, lawyers, campaigns, and organized groups who oppose or engage in direct action against, the use of non-human animals in research, as food, as clothing, or as entertainment.

Members of the movement can be found all over the world, although many of its ideas and methods were developed by British activists. The UK is regarded as "Afghanistan for the growth of animal rights extremism throughout the world," Patti Strand of the American lobby group National Animal Alliance told the BBC. "The animal rights movement that we are dealing with in the United States is a direct import from the United Kingdom." Cox, Simon & Vadon, Richard. "How animal rights took on the world", BBC Radio 4, retrieved June 18, 2006.

Methods

The movement espouses a number of approaches to furthering the cause of animal rights.

Some groups reject violence against persons, intimidation, threats, and the destruction of property: for example, the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) and Animal Aid. These groups concentrate on education and research, including carrying out undercover investigations of animal-testing facilities.

Other groups advocate and support the destruction of property or intimidation of those involved in what they perceive as animal abuse, but do not themselves engage in those activities, concentrating instead on education, research, media campaigns, and undercover investigations: for example, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

A third category of activists operates using the leaderless resistance model, working in covert cells consisting of small numbers of trusted friends, or of one individual acting alone. These cells engage in direct action: for example by carrying out raids to release animals from laboratories and farms, using names like the Animal Liberation Front; or by engaging in the destruction of property and intimidation of people, using a campaign name like Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC).

Activists who have carried out or threatened acts of physical violence have operated using the names Animal Rights Militia (ARM) and the Justice Department.

Philosophical and legal aims

The movement aims to include animals in the moral community by putting the basic interests of non-human animals on more of an equal footing with the basic interests of human beings. A basic interest would be, for example, not being made to suffer pain on behalf of other individual human or non-human animals.

A related aim is to remove animals from the sphere of property, and to award them personhood; that is, to see them awarded legal rights to protect their basic interests.

Animal rights activists argue that animals appear to have value in law only in relation to their usefulness or benefit to their owners, and are awarded no intrinsic value whatsoever. In the United States, for example, state and federal laws formulate the rules for the treatment of animals in terms of their status as property. The Texas Animal Cruelty Laws apply only to pets living under the custody of human beings. They exclude birds, deer, rabbits, squirrels, and other wild animals not owned by humans. The U.S. Animal Welfare Act excludes "pet stores ... state and country fairs, livestock shows, rodeos, purebred dog and cat shows, and any fairs or exhibitions intended to advance agricultural arts and sciences." The Department of Agriculture interprets the Act as also excluding cold-blooded animals, and warm-blooded animals not "used for research, teaching, testing, experimentation ... exhibition purposes, or as a pet, [and] farm animals used for food, fiber, or production purposes". [1]

Regarding the campaign to change the status of animals as property, the movement has seen success in two countries. Switzerland passed legislation in 1992 recognizing non-human animals as beings, not things. In 2002, rights for non-human animals were enshrined in the German constitution when the words "and animals" were added to the clause obliging the state to respect and protect the dignity of human beings. [2]

The Seattle-based Great Ape Project (GAP) — founded by Australian philosopher Peter Singer, the author of Animal Liberation (which is one of the bibles of the movement) — is campaigning for the United Nations to adopt its Declaration on Great Apes, which would see chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orang-utans included in a "community of equals" with human beings. The declaration wants to extend to the non-human apes the protection of three basic interests: the right to life, the protection of individual liberty, and the prohibition of torture. [3]

Public support

Animal People, an independent newspaper covering the international animal-protection and animal-rights movements, indicates that these issues are increasing in popularity with the public. Citing U.S. IRS (tax) form 990 numbers for 2004, the newspaper says that donations to animal rights groups increased by 40 percent from 2003 to 2004. For example:
*The Humane Society of the United States (animal protection): revenues of $74 million, up 3 percent.
*The Massachusetts Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (animal protection): revenues of $48.2 million, up an 11 percent.
*People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (animal rights): $28.1 million, up 20 percent.
*Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (animal rights): $16 million, up from $12 million.

The Animal Liberation Front, Animal Defense League and Earth Liberation Front did not file 990s, but Animal People estimates the combined budgets of the more militant animal-rights organizations at more than $290 million in 2004, up from $207 million in 2003. [4] As the U.S. Justice department now labels these groups as "terrorist organizations"[5][6], under the USA PATRIOT Act, donations to them are federal crimes and punishable by substantial criminal penalties[7].

Violence

While most of the movement does not engage in violence against persons, a November 13, 2003 edition of CBS News' 60 Minutes charged that "eco-terrorists," a term used by the United States government to refer to the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front, are considered by the FBI to be "the country's biggest domestic terrorist threat." In hearings held on May 18, 2005 before a Senate panel, SHAC was also identified as "a U.S. terror threat." [8]

John Lewis, a Deputy Assistant Director for Counterterrorism at the FBI, stated in a 60 Minutes interview that these groups "have caused over $100 million worth of damage nationwide", and that "there are more than 150 investigations of eco-terrorist crimes underway". [9]

Notes

References

*"How animal rights took on the world" by Simon Cox and Richard Vadon, BBC Radio 4, November 18, 2004
*Taylor, A. Animals and Ethics. Broadview Press, 2003. ISBN 1551115697
*"A Critique of the Kantian Theory of Indirect Moral Duties to Animals" by Jeff Sebo, AnimalLiberationFront.com, undated, retrieved September 4, 2005
*"Burning Rage" by Ed Bradley, CBS 60 Minutes, November 5, 2005
*"FBI, ATF address domestic terrorism", by Terry Frieden, CNN, May 19, 2005
*Animal Liberation Through Trade Unions?

Animal liberation movement: Encyclopedia BETA

Contents