Are animal rights groups turning vegetarians back to meat?

How the glorification of vegetarianism (and other single issue campaigns) is confusing the public about animal rights. Are the animal rights groups promoting exploitation?

It seems the media are reporting a rising trend in vegetarians returning to eating meat. Could the big animal groups be to blame? 

Organisations such as Viva! and Animal Aid, claim to want to end all animal exploitation (the abolishment of animal use), but what are they actually promoting? Could their message to the pubic actually conflict with this goal?........

The problem of promoting vegetarianism-Why vegetarians are going back to eating meat.

Why vegetarianism isn’t working.

The following article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/8884326/Vegetarians-now-showing-their-softer-side.html#disqus_thread cites “The number of vegetarians has dipped and plateaued over the past decade, partly because successful animal welfare campaigns have turned veggies back to meat.”



As we can see from the rise in articles like this, more and more vegetarians are going back to consuming meat, rather than becoming vegan. The attitude towards vegetarianism and animals themselves is pretty bleak, clearly the author of this particular article does not take them seriously. And is it any wonder? Spending time and resources promoting vegetarianism is not helping the animals. Indeed it seems it is damaging for animal advocates to do so. The message of rights for animals (not to be used as property) is being lost.

Firstly, the position of vegetarianism is an illogical one. It singles out and abstains from just one kind of animal use (flesh). This suggests that this use is morally worse or more “cruel” than all other ways of using animals. This is inaccurate; ALL animals in the dairy and egg industries are slaughtered and get eaten just as “meat animals” do. It could be argued that animals used for eggs and dairy in fact suffer more than those killed for meat (of course a lot of vegetarians are unaware of this). To just boycott meat but to continue to consume eggs, dairy, honey etc, is as silly as just boycotting dairy but continuing to consume meat, eggs and honey. It doesn’t make sense as a rational or moral matter. One of the problems with single issue campaigns (SICs).

The controversy of comparing human and non-human animal suffering and putting it into context

Introduction for non-vegans

In industries of animal exploitation, non-human animals are subjected to rape, psychological distress, physical torture and are killed (murdered) in order to produce various animal products for human-animals to consume. Humans have no biological necessity for any of these products. They simply exist for pleasure, convenience and most of all, profit. These are trivial reasons to commit such horrific acts against sentient-persons. (For anyone who has not witnessed the reality of animal use, please watch the documentary Earthlings available free online at www.earthlings.com as an introduction).

Such industries cannot be successfully regulated. A property owner has the legal right to do almost anything to their animal property, no matter how much pain or distress this may cause the non-human animal, as long as there is a perceived purpose (i.e some kind of gain for the owner such as increased profits). A property owner can breed more animals and lethally dispose of them at will. (Check out Animals, Property And The Law by Gary L. Francione for further evidence of this). When you are someone else’s property you have no rights. Your life has no moral value. Your body is someone else’s to use against your will. Beyond exploitation, it is quite literally slavery. Welfare regulation becomes meaningless and indeed only comes into effect when it benefits the producer (by increasing production efficiency and profit). Any minor benefit experienced by the non-human animal is incidental. Welfare regulation fails as a practical matter, but more importantly as a moral one. We should not be advocating for “humane” (regulated) animal use any more than we should be advocating for humane rape or humane human slavery. Simply regulating the suffering misses the point of why it is morally objectionable in the first place.

Why I am vegan and advocate animal rights. A brief note.

I have a deep respect for non-human animals. They are sentient persons and members of our moral community. I reject violence against animals by not buying any animal product¹, or that which has been tested on animals². I oppose the enslavement, use and killing of non-human persons, so I withdraw my financial support of industries of exploitation. Similarly I do not patronize establishments who confine animals and use them for entertainment purposes³. These trivial and unnecessary practices inflict immense suffering and violate the basic rights of fellow sentient individuals not to be used as things or property. I take the rights of non-human animals seriously and consider humans using them as resources, or for purposes of pleasure, convenience or profit, an immoral violation of these rights. Intelligence or cognitive ability is irrelevant. Sentience is the only necessity for the basic right not to be used in this way.

To regard an individual to be of lesser or no moral value based on a difference in species is known as speciesism. It is the same as when a white-supremacist considers himself morally superior to non-whites, purely because of skin colour(racism); or when a man considers women to be lesser than himself purely based on gender (sexism). It is discrimination based on irrelevant characteristics that do not determine an individual’s moral value.

To be vegan is to reject speciesism and violence. Vegan individuals tend to reject discrimination, violence and exploitation in all its forms, applying the principle of equal consideration to both human and non-human animals in this regard.

I reject welfare reform as I do not wish to regulate slavery and/or support the idea that slavery is acceptable. Slavery in all its forms needs to be abolished. Speciesism needs to be tackled and the property status of non-human animals needs to be ended by the legal implement of the basic right of any sentient individual not to be owned as property. This is what it means to support animal rights. The moral baseline/minimum requirement of respecting non-humans and ending their slavery is to stop using them in our everyday lives. 

This means being vegan.

¹(e.g meat, milk, eggs, leather, wool, fur, silk, honey, beeswax, food and non-food products with animal ingredients)

²(e.g household products and cosmetics)

³(e.g circuses, zoos, marine parks)

Fox Hunting And Eating Meat-What’s The Difference? A response to Douglas Batchelor

On Christmas Eve 2010, Douglas Batchelor, head of The League Against Cruel Sports, wrote a blog post entitled “An Ethical Christmas”. In this post, he addressed why he himself and many other meat eaters as a general rule, are against blood sports such as fox hunting, but still continue to eat animal products. It was written in response to criticism from Alice Bernard, the Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance. She asked those who oppose hunting for sport to justify why they feel shooting/ hunting a “free-range” wild animal is morally wrong, but killing a farmed animal is fine; and why they would rather eat an animal who has no doubt endured a life of suffering and a painful death in the industrial farm system, over one who has been shot by a hunter (which she deems to be “humane”). She is not the first to do so and won’t be the last. Sarah Palin, Republican politician and hunting advocate in the US has also accused the anti-hunt “carnists” of hypocrisy.

As an ethical vegan opposed to all use and abuse of animals, I never thought I would see the day when I actually agreed with something someone from The Countryside Alliance, or the hunting community, said...But in this instance, I must agree with the hypocrisy in logic.