Gary Francione,
Animal
Rights: The Abolitionist Approach
October 2015
The problem is identifying the problem as “factory farms” and not animal use or exploitation–wherever it occurs and however supposedly “humane” or “compassionate” or “merciful” it is.
Mercy for Animals, an animal welfare organization, claims that “The Problem” is “Animals suffering miserably on factory farms.”
Wrong.
The problem is identifying the problem as “factory farms” and not animal use
or exploitation–wherever it occurs and however supposedly “humane” or
“compassionate” or “merciful” it is.
Misidentifying the problem has absurd and speciesist consequences, such as
declaring the McDonald’s “cage-free” egg announcement as a “victory” and
identifying this:
and this
as “Progress!” and as representing “meaningful changes.”
McDonald’s sells the suffering and death of animals.
Groups like the Humane Society of the United States and Mercy for Animals
act as partners with McDonald’s in selling that suffering and death.
McDonald’s gets “animal advocates” to promote them and their products.
In return, McDonald’s gives these “animal advocates” meaningless “victories”
to use in fundraising.
HSUS declares the McDonald’s “cage-free” egg announcement as a “watershed
moment.”
MFA “applaud[s] McDonald’s for its commitment to phasing out cruel cages in
its North American egg supply chain” and calls McDonald’s “praiseworthy.”
That statement is breathtaking.
Here’s a screenshot of the MFA statement in case you simply cannot believe
that “animal advocates” would “applaud” animal exploitation.
Notice that, in addition to “applaud[ing]” the McDonald’s “cage-free” egg
announcement, MFA tells its supporters to ask McDonald’s to continue it’s
“praiseworthy progress by adopting meaningful standards for chickens killed
for Chicken McNuggets.”
And that’s the problem.
Supporting these groups is supporting animal exploitation just as much as
consuming a McDonald’s animal product is.
If animals matter morally, then we are obligated morally to embrace and
promote veganism as a moral imperative and we are equally obligated to
oppose the speciesist idea that imposing suffering and death on animals can
ever be “praiseworthy.”
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