Dear Colleagues:

Anyone who claims that ethical veganism, as it is represented in the abolitionist approach to animal rights, is a single-issue campaign understands neither abolitionist ethical veganism nor single-issue campaigns (SICs).

Ethical veganism is the notion that we should not eat, wear, or use animals for human purposes. Ethical veganism reflects the view that we cannot distinguish among various types of animal exploitation for moral purposes and that we should abolish animal exploitation altogether.

Ethical veganism is the application of of the principle of abolition in one’s individual life and requires that one eschew all forms of animal use or consumption.

Ethical veganism recognizes that all sentient beings have an interest not only in not suffering but in continuing to live. Therefore, killing animals for human use, even if we have treated animals “humanely,” is fundamentally unjust.

Single-issue campaigns focus on particular uses of animals, or on particular species. Examples: a campaign against fur; a campaign against the use of wild animals in circuses; a campaign against white veal to encourage the consumption of red veal or against battery eggs in favor of “cage-free” eggs; a boycott of a state because it allows the killing of a particular “favored” sort of animal, such as wolves. All mainstream animal organizations promote SICs. No mainstream group has adopted ethical veganism as its exclusive, or even a, central focus.

An ethical vegan would not support any animal exploitation. Therefore, to say that ethical veganism is a SIC is to fail to understand the nature of ethical veganism or the fact that SICs rest on distinguishing among various forms of animal exploitation and promoting the notion that some forms are worse than others and, by implication, that other forms of exploitation are morally desirable or morally acceptable.

One can, of course, use the expression “veganism” to apply only to diet in the sense that one who does not eat any animal products may be considered to have a vegan diet. This use of “vegan” is more restricted than the notion as I have developed it in my abolitionist theory. Promoting a vegan diet is more like an SIC than is promoting ethical veganism and the abolition of all animal use. But the practical reality is that if people rejected eating any animal products, we would see a rejection in all sorts of other animal use. The most significant form of animal exploitation–the form that “legitimizes” all the others–involves using animals as food. If you dislodge that use, you dislodge all others.

But let us be clear: abolitionist ethical veganism rejects all animal use. As such, to call it an SIC is to fail to understand what ethical veganism is or to misrepresent it.

Gary L. Francione
© 2010 Gary L. Francione

Dear Colleagues:

In his Report from the Seal Slaughter: Special Chance to Help, HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle writes:

It’s a day I dread each year: the first blow or bullet landed against a baby seal off Canada’s East Coast. It marks the beginning of the world’s largest, intentional slaughter of marine mammals.”

The HSUS solution? It has two parts.

First, HSUS has launched a “Save a Seal Today” campaign that asks people to sign a pledge “not to buy seafood products produced in Canada—such as snow crabs, cod, scallops, and shrimp—until Canada ends its commercial seal hunt for good.”

So, according to HSUS, we should boycott seafood produced in Canada and instead eat seafood produced in America, France, Norway, Japan, etc. But have no fear. We do not have to give up those yummy Canadian seafood products forever. Once the Canadians stop the commercial seal killing, then we can resume eating them.

The first part of the HSUS solution not only does what just about every single-issue campaign does—sends the message that some animals, whether seals, wolves, or nonhuman primates, have greater moral value than others—but it explicitly reinforces that speciesist valuation by encouraging the consumption of other non-Canadian sea animals until Canada stops killing the seals (as a commercial enterprise).

Now, I understand that humans find seals to be more cute than codfish, shrimp, scallops, etc. but human perceptions of cuteness really ought not to be the criterion for membership in the moral community.

HSUS notes:

Why boycott Canadian seafood? Because it’s working.

A small group of commercial fishermen in Eastern Canada kill seal pups for their fur, earning a tiny fraction of their annual income. Their industry has seen its revenue plummet since we started the boycott a few years ago.

So if we continue the boycott and the seal kill stops, then the Canadian seafood industry can reemerge and continue its previous higher level of slaughtering fish and other aquatic nonhumans.

The difference is that codfish, shrimp, scallops, etc., although presumably appealing to other codfish, shrimp, scallops, etc. simply don’t have those little faces that just make us humans melt.

But sentient sea animals value their lives just as the seals value theirs.

So the first part of the HSUS solution to the seal kill is explicitly speciesist and deliberately reinforces the notion that some animals matter more an others. This is very typical with these single-issue campaigns. And HSUS takes the further step of encouraging the public to consume the less-favored animals in order to benefit the more-favored ones.

Animal protection organizations are increasingly using boycotts that explicitly promote animal exploitation. For example, PETA announced a boycott of Kentucky Fried Chicken until KFC agrees to buy its chickens from producers who gas the birds, which PETA promotes as a more “humane” way of killing the birds and as economically more profitable for chicken producers. When KFC in Canada agreed to gassing chickens, PETA called off its boycott (in Canada). The message sent is crystal clear: it is morally acceptable to consume birds who have been gassed.

Second, Pacelle states:

This fight can be demoralizing. But we must keep our gaze fixed on our goal. Today, I’m asking for your support to help us stop it once and for all. If you give now to our efforts to save seals, your donation will be tripled by the Giant Steps Foundation and other generous donors. With every dollar you give, until we hit a total of $400,000, these other donors will give two dollars. Please consider a special gift—with this chance to turn every dollar you donate into three—to help us finally win the battle.

So, according to HSUS, your contribution of money can help HSUS “finally win the battle” because a total contribution of $400,000 will be worth $1.2 million to HSUS.

I do not understand this.

How can anyone say with a straight face that another $1.2 million is going to make a meaningful difference? Pacelle acknowledges that HSUS has an annual budget of $150 million and financial records indicate that HSUS has assets of almost $225 million.

But another $1.2 million is what we need “to help us finally win the battle”?

It is, of course, terrible that the seals are being killed. But it is also terrible that some use this tragedy to rake in a few more dollars.

I should add that the HSUS seal campaign is being directed by Humane Society International (HSI). HSI has launched a “Humane Choice” label in Australia that it claims “will guarantee the consumer that the animal has been treated with respect and care, from birth through to death.” A product bearing the HSI “Humane Choice” label assures the consumer of the following:

[T]he animal has had the best life and death offered to any farm animal. They basically live their lives as they would have done on Old McDonald’s farm, being allowed to satisfy their behavioural needs, to forage and move untethered and uncaged, with free access to outside areas, shade when it’s hot, shelter when it’s cold, with a good diet and a humane death.

So let’s “dread” the day the seal kill begins but reassure the public that the daily slaughter of millions of farm animals is just fine.

And Pacelle, at a recent news conference about animals used for food, stated:

We’re not asking for an end to the confinements of animals in buildings. We’re asking they not be crammed into cages and crates barely larger than their bodies.

So let’s “win the battle” against the seal kill but provide a bit more space to the animals tortured on factory farms.

It should be apparent to you that the mainstream groups (and they’re all pretty much the same) are exploiting animals as a business venture and none of this has anything to with shifting the paradigm from animals as property to animals as moral persons.

The campaign against the seal kill has been going on for decades. It has not ended yet. But many of the mainstream groups have made millions and millions of dollars from the campaign over those decades.

There is one way to change the status quo: to dislodge people from the default position that animals are things. There is one means to that end: creative, nonviolent vegan education.

The alternative is telling people that they should eat American codfish rather than Canadian codfish until Canada stops killing certain animals who have the good fortune to appeal to us. The alternative is pretending that there is some difference between seal fur or the skin of any other animal. The alternative is to maintain that we should stop killing cute seal pups but that we can continue to consume cows, pigs, and chickens who have a “Humane Choice” label slapped on their corpses.

The alternatives make no sense. Indeed, they are counterproductive in that they mislead the public into thinking that we can make meaningful moral distinctions among different sorts of animal exploitation.

So I say to Wayne Pacelle, whom I have known for many years: Wayne, do you really want to “finally win the battle”? Then put your talent and the talents of your HSUS colleagues, and the considerable resources of HSUS, behind a single clear message:

Go Vegan. Stop eating, wearing, consuming, or otherwise using nonhuman animals.

Wayne, if you really want things to change, stop promoting the notion that some animals count more as a moral matter than do others. Stop promoting “happy” meat and animal products. Stop promoting the notion of “responsible breeding.” Stop promoting the fantasy that some slaughterhouses are “abusive” and others are not. Educate your 11 million members that the issue is animal use, not fetishizing certain animals over others or reforming animal torture, which, given the status of animals as chattel property, will never result in improved protection for animals anyway and will only make the public feel more comfortable about exploiting and consuming animals. Yes, your more conservative donors will object but so what? Imagine the impact you could have if you made clear that a “humane” society was one that rejected all animal use.

To all of you: If you are not vegan, go vegan. It is incredibly easy to do; it is better for your physical health and for the planet. But, most importantly, it is the morally right thing to do.

And then, go educate others about veganism in creative, nonviolent ways. An idea shared with others is worth so very much more than a dollar given to already fantastically wealthy corporations—even if the dollar you donate is tripled.

Finally, amidst all of the focus on seals and other “special” animals, please do not forget the fact that there are millions of dogs, cats, rats, fish, birds, mice, and other nonhumans who need homes today. Right now. Please adopt a homeless nonhuman. There are more animals now than ever who need homes. The housing crisis is depriving nonhumans as well as humans of their homes. Please adopt. We are responsible for domesticated animals being in a world in which they do not fit. The least that we can do is to give them a place of refuge. Adoption is an important form of animal rights activism.

Gary L. Francione
©2010 Gary L. Francione

Dear Colleagues:

Two items of note came across my desk in the past several days:

First, Peter Singer, “father of the animal rights movement,” said in an interview:

PROFESSOR PETER SINGER: If we are going to eat animal products then I think there’s a heavy responsibility on us to make sure that the animals didn’t suffer. And that might involve a bit of going to local markets, or, at the very least, buying certified organic, given the present system.

And that will definitely be better than the factory farm production. I think those are options. I don’t think we should be eating nearly as much meat or animal products as we we’re eating anyway.

So by consuming locally produced flesh and animal products, or “certified organic” products, we discharge our “heavy responsibility…to make sure the animals didn’t suffer.” That is absurd. Locally produced or organic flesh/products come from animals who are tortured. Singer’s comment is no different from saying:

If we are going to molest children, I think there’s a heavy responsibility on us to make sure that the children didn’t suffer. And that might involve giving them a bit of chocolate.

And Singer adds that we should not be eating “nearly as much meat or animal products as we’re eating anyway.”

Peter, the amount that we should be eating is zero.

Thanks to Our Father for once again reinforcing that animal exploitation is morally acceptable.

Second, Britain’s Science Minister, Lord Drayson, noted that despite militant direct action targeting vivisectors, the number of animal experiments in the U.K. increased 14% from last year and a study

shows that just a third of British adults would like a ban on animal experimentation, while the number of people who now unconditionally accept the need for animal research has increased by 28 per cent since 1999.

The present approach is not working. And apart from the question of the morality of violence, militant direct action is doing nothing more than increasing the perception that animal rights is a fringe issue that is promoted by crazies who should not be taken seriously. But that should come as no surprise. In a world in which the overwhelming number of people think that it is morally acceptable to inflict pain, suffering, and death on 56 billion animals per year for no better reason than that they taste good, the public is not about to regard those who advocate violence against a use of animals that has been sold to them as “necessary” for their health as anything other than crazies. This frustrates serious discussion about the morality of animal use.

We need to shift the paradigm away from property status and toward moral personhood. And the only way to do that is through creative, nonviolent vegan education.

Gary L. Francione
©2010 Gary L. Francione

Dear Colleagues:

Several weeks ago, I asked for questions that people would like me to address. I received approximately 80 questions. I plan to do several Commentaries in which I discuss at least some of these questions.

A number of the questions that I received concern single-issue campaigns so this Commentary deals primarily with that topic and with the issue about why many of those who promote violence are opposed to the abolitionist approach.

Gary L. Francione
©2010 Gary L. Francione

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Dear Colleagues:

In my previous blog post, Partners in Exploitation, I discussed the various labeling schemes endorsed and promoted by HSUS, PETA, and other animal welfare corporations.

Well low and behold, yesterday, I went to the local Whole Foods Market, you know, the one to which PETA gave the Best Animal-Friendly Retailer award, and I picked up a copy of the Whole Foods magazine, “Whole Deal.”

And there was a coupon for “All Natural Brown Cow Parfaits,” which are apparently combinations of different flavors of yogurt.

Yogurt? But doesn’t that involve animal suffering and death?

Not to worry. As you can see:

This yogurt carries the “Certified Humane Raised & Handled” label. The Certified Humane Raised and Handled Label is the stamp of approval of an organization called Humane Farm Animal Care, which developed the label with its partners, including the Humane Society of the United States. The HFAC/HSUS label is described as “a consumer certification and labeling program” to give consumers assurance that a labeled “egg, dairy, meat or poultry product has been produced with the welfare of the farm animal in mind.”

The fine print on the coupon says that the Brown Cow Parfait:

“Meets the Humane Farm Animal Care Program standards, which include nutritious diet without antibiotics, or hormones, animals raised with shelter, resting areas, sufficient space and the ability to engage in natural behaviors.”

Please note that cow on the coupon is wearing a little service cap and holding a spoon in her mouth. So it’s all okay. You see, she’s willingly serving you this product, made from her suffering and death and the suffering and death of her children.

The coupon has “Euphoria!” written at the top. “Euphoria” is defined as a “sense of happiness or well-being.”

And whose euphoria, whose sense of happiness or well being are we talking about?

Perhaps the euphoria of Humane Farm Animal Care, which charges fees for its little stamp-of-approval? Perhaps the euphoria of HSUS, which promotes these “humane” products so that HSUS members and the public in general can feel warm and furry about eating the products of animal torture? Perhaps the euphoria of Whole Foods, who peddle “humane” animal flesh and “happy” animal products and make a fortune doing so? Perhaps the euphoria of PETA, who gives awards to places like Whole Foods so that it, like HSUS, can cash on the “happy meat” fundraising and encourage animal consumption?

One thing of which we can be completely certain: It is not the euphoria of the cow.

If you are not vegan, go vegan. It’s incredibly easy. It is better for your health. It is better for the planet, which sustains all life. And most importantly, it’s the morally right thing to do.

Gary L. Francione
©2010 Gary L. Francione