Animal Rights Movement

The animal rights movement is a political movement that ascribes to nonhuman animals some of the same protections that many people recognize as belonging to all humans. It has taken two main tracks. First, there have been diverse activists whose conduct runs the spectrum from those who have made personal choices about animals and have become vegetarian, [Page 94]for example, to those who are much more radical and engage in various public acts of social disruption, upheaval, and, in some cases, even extreme violence. These individuals find grave fault with the way humans treat animals in contexts such as factory farming and agribusiness, the entertainment industry, and in medical experimentation and seek to change practices in these areas. However, this movement also can be depicted as a scholarly and more academic endeavor that has been led by a number of prominent applied ethicists among other concerned individuals. Together the intellectual and activist movements form the backbone of the animal rights movement. And, it should be said, there has not always been a positive reaction to this movement as many see the idea of ascribing rights to animals as wrongheaded and, for some, just plain silly.

The goals of the animal rights movement vary from activist to activist, and not all ethicists who advance the intellectual claims of animal rights agree on a common set of purposes, but there are some positions that present recurring themes. First, the theme of reducing, if not eliminating entirely, the suffering of animals is a position that many advocate. Whether this pain comes at the hand of intentional cruelty or arises from the treatment many animals receive in the commercial sectors of factory farming and agribusiness, suffering is often pointed to as abridging the rights of animals. Second, the issue of the morality of using animals in medical and other forms of experimentation is one that is in the forefront of the movement. Is animal experimentation a form of inhumane exploitation of them, especially if it leads to a reduction in disease for humans and animals?

Third, the issue of using animals for entertainment in venues such as small and confining zoos, circuses, rodeos, and traveling carnivals also present concerns for many advocates. They are especially troubled by the usually poor and degrading treatment that animals receive in such entertainment facilities and there are often news items of petting zoos that report cruelty to animals. Likewise, staged animal fighting and bullfights are highlighted as unacceptable forms of entertainment. Finally, many animal rights advocates seek an end to the hunting and trapping of wild animals where, they say, human pleasure is had through animal pain and suffering. The hotly debated U.K. controversy over the “blood sport” of fox hunting with hounds, which was banned in 2004, is a good case in point.