2007_10_01_archive

As if Rights Violations Were Not Enough.

It is hard to resist the conclusion that, if there were an `animal

rights movement' that took rights seriously, we would see different

claims from animal advocates.

For example, Joanna Lumley has recently authored a Times piece [1]

entitled "Holy Cow! We're crazy to farm livestock like this". Lumley

says that she prefers "not to eat food that has a face. But many of my

nearest and dearest love their meat, and who am I to ask them not to

eat so much of it? Until now, that is."

So what's changed? She explains: "Having just discovered the huge

impact of livestock production on global warming, I need hesitate no

longer. Reducing our meat consumption is no longer an option but an

urgent necessity".

From an animal rights point of view, nonhuman animal sentients are

rightholders. What humans do to them - including breeding, mutilating,

fattening, transporting and slaughtering them - are rights violations.

No animal rights advocate would have to wait for evidence that

`farming' nonhuman animals can harm humans too to recognise it - and

claim it - to be wrong.

By the same token, animal rights advocates object to vivisection

because animal experimentation is a violation of nonhuman animal

rights, not because it is a poor methodology that may lead to human

harm.

What makes Joanna Lumley's comments so odd in the ears of an animal

rights advocate is the thought that, were she making a human rights

point, she would be suggesting that she could not meaningfully oppose,

say, human trafficking until is was discovered that human trafficking

added to global warming.

Of course, it should be noted in all fairness that Joanna Lumley

herself has never pretended to present an animal rights view of

human-nonhuman relations. PeTA could learn much from her in this

respect. Lumley's chief work has been for Compassion In World Farming

who suggest that consumers can reduce their meat consumption to levels

that do not harm the environment. Don't hold your breath for mention

of rights violations in their new report. [2] Joanna Lumley says

consumers can try having two meat-free days per week: maybe try one

lamb chop rather than two. As for CIWF in general terms, in line with

the "happy meat" campaigners, they recommend "high welfare meat" -

whatever that is. [3]

[1]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors