World Animal Foundation
in the interest of animals...
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FAQs
"What do you mean by
'animal rights'?"
"Animal rights" is a concept based
on the belief that humans have a moral
responsibility to treat animals with
respect, and that the interests of humans
and animals should be considered equally.
This means that in any decision that could
potentially affect the life of an animal, that
particular animal's interests should not be
dismissed simply because it is inconvenient for us to consider them.
Although it may not always be easy to determine accurately the best interests of an animal, we can safely assume that animals generally prefer to live, to be free from pain, and to express their natural behaviors. The failure of humans to consider an animal's needs/interests as equal to those of humans is an expression of prejudice called speciesism.
"What rights should animals have?"
Animals have the right to equal consideration of their interests. For instance, a dog most certainly has an interest in not having pain inflicted on him or her unnecessarily. We therefore are obliged to take that interest into consideration and respect the dog's right not to have pain unnecessarily inflicted upon him or her.
However, animals don't always have the same rights as humans, because their interests are not always the same as ours and some rights would be irrelevant to animals' lives. For instance, a dog doesn't have an interest in voting and therefore doesn't have the right to vote, since that right would be as meaningless to a dog as it is to a child.
"Where do you draw the line?"
The renowned humanitarian Albert Schweitzer, who accomplished so much for both humans and animals in his lifetime, would take time to stoop and move a worm from hot pavement to cool earth. Aware of the problems and responsibilities an expanded ethic brings with it, he said we each must "live daily from judgment to judgment, deciding each case as it arises, as wisely and mercifully as we can."
We can't stop all suffering, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't stop any. In today's world of virtually unlimited choices, there are usually "kinder, gentler" ways for most of us to feed, clothe, entertain, and educate ourselves.
"What about plants?"
There is currently no reason to believe that plants experience pain, devoid as they are of central nervous systems, nerve endings, and brains. The main reason that animals have the ability to experience pain is as a form of self-protection. If you touch something that hurts and could possibly injure you, the pain will teach you to leave it alone in the future. Since plants cannot locomote to escape pain and therefore do not have the need to learn to avoid certain things, the ability to feel pain would be superfluous and evolutionarily illogical in plants.
Furthermore, even if plants were able to suffer, it wouldn't justify causing pain and distress to animals like dogs, cows, rats, or chickens, who we know are capable of suffering a great deal.
"Wasn't Hitler in favor of animal rights?"
Although the Nazis purported to pass an anti-vivisection bill, they did not. In fact, they were required by law to first perform their experiments on animals before carrying them out on humans. Experiments on humans did not replace animal experiments; on the contrary, animal experiments made them possible. John Vyvyan in The Dark Face of Science summed it up correctly: "The experiments made on prisoners were many and diverse, but they had one thing in common: All were in continuation of or complementary to experiments on animals. In every instance, this antecedent scientific literature is mentioned in the evidence; and at Buchenwald and Auschwitz concentration camps, human and animal experiments were carried out simultaneously as parts of a single programme."
However, even if this weren't the case, the merits of an idea cannot be determined by the character of its proponents. If Hitler believed in evolution, does that mean we should not believe in evolution? What if Gandhi also believed in evolution-how would we reconcile the two? An idea must be judged on its own merits.
"It's fine for you to believe in animal rights, but you shouldn't tell other people what to do."
Everybody is entitled to their own opinions, but freedom of thought does not always imply freedom of action. You are free to believe whatever you want as long as you don't hurt others. You may believe that animals should be killed, that black people should be enslaved, or that women should be beaten, but you don't always have the right to put your beliefs into practice.
As for telling people what to do, society exists so that there will be rules governing people's behavior. The very nature of reform movements is to tell others what to do-don't use humans as slaves, don't sexually harass women, etc.-and all movements initially encounter opposition from people who want to go on doing the criticized behavior.
"Animals don't reason, don't understand rights, and don't always respect our rights, so why should we apply our ideas of morality to them?"
Because an animal's inability to understand and adhere to our rules is as irrelevant as a child's or mentally handicapped person's inability to do so. Animals are not usually capable of choosing to change their behavior, but human beings have the intelligence to choose between behavior that hurts others and behavior that doesn't.
"Where does the animal rights movement stand on abortion?"
There are people on both sides of the abortion issue in the animal rights movement, just as there are people on both sides of animal rights issues in the pro-life movement. And just as the pro-life movement has no official position on animal rights, neither does the animal rights movement have an official position on abortion.
"It's almost impossible to avoid using all animal products; if you're still causing animal suffering without realizing it, what's the point?"
It is impossible to live your life without causing some harm; we've all accidentally stepped on ants or breathed in gnats, but that doesn't mean we should intentionally cause unnecessary harm. Just because you might accidentally hit someone with your car is no reason to run someone over on purpose.
"What about all the customs, traditions, and jobs that depend on using animals?"
The invention of the automobile, the abolition of slavery, and the end of World War II also necessitated job retraining and restructuring. This is simply an ingredient in all social progress-not a reason to deter progress.
"Don't animal rights activists commit 'terrorist' acts?"
The animal rights movement is nonviolent. One of the central beliefs shared by most animal rights people is rejection of harm to any animal, human or otherwise. However, any large movement is going to have factions that believe in the use of force.
"How can you justify spending your time on animals when there are so many people who need help?"
There are very serious problems in the world that deserve our attention; cruelty to animals is one of them. We should try to alleviate suffering wherever we can. Helping animals is not any more or less important than helping human beings-they are both important. Animal suffering and human suffering are interconnected.
"Most animals used for food, fur, or experiments are bred for that purpose."
Being bred for a certain purpose does not change an animal's biological capacity to feel pain and fear.
"God put animals here for us to use; the Bible gives us dominion over animals."
Dominion is not the same as tyranny. There is nothing in the Bible that would justify our modern-day policies and programs that desecrate the environment, destroy entire species of wildlife, and inflict torment and death on billions of animals every year. The Bible imparts a reverence for life; a loving God could not help but be appalled at the way animals are being treated.
"Animals in cages on factory farms or in laboratories don't suffer that much because they've never known anything else."
To be prevented from performing the most basic instinctual behaviors causes tremendous suffering. Even animals caged since birth feel the need to move around, groom themselves, stretch their limbs or wings, and exercise. Herd animals and flock animals become distressed when they are made to live in isolation or when they are put in groups too large for them to be able to recognize other members. In addition, all confined animals suffer from intense boredom-some so severely that it can lead to self-mutilation or other self-destructive behavior.
"If animal exploitation were wrong, it would be illegal."
Legality is no guarantee of morality. Who does and doesn't have legal rights is determined merely by the opinion of today's legislators. The law changes as public opinion or political motivations change, but ethics are not so arbitrary. Look at some of the other things that have at one time been legal in the U.S.-child labor, human slavery, the oppression of women.
"Animals are not as intelligent or advanced as humans."
If possessing superior intelligence does not entitle one human to abuse another human for his or her purposes, why should it entitle humans to abuse nonhumans?
There are animals who are unquestionably more intelligent, creative, aware, communicative, and able to use language than some humans, as in the case of a chimpanzee compared to a human infant or a severely mentally handicapped person. Should the more intelligent animals have rights and the less intelligent humans be denied rights?
"Conditions on factory farms or fur farms are no worse than in the wild, where animals die of starvation, disease, or predation. At least the animals on factory farms are fed and protected."
This argument was used to claim that black people were better off as slaves on plantations than as free men and women. The same could also be said of people in prison, yet prison is considered one of society's harshest punishments.
Animals on factory farms suffer so much that it is inconceivable that they could be worse off in the wild. The wild isn't "wild" to the animals who live there; it's their home. There they have their freedom and can engage in their natural activities. The fact that they might suffer in the wild is no reason to ensure that they suffer in captivity.
"Hunting is much less cruel than factory farming."
It is true that quickly killing an animal in the wild is much less cruel than factory farming. However, hunting, like factory farming, disrupts families and causes pain, trauma, and grief to both the victims and the survivors.
"Without hunting, deer and other animals would overpopulate and die of starvation."
Starvation and disease are unfortunate, but they are nature's way of ensuring that the strong survive. Natural predators help keep prey species strong by killing only the sick and weak. Hunters, however, kill any animal they come across or any animal whose head they think would look good mounted above the fireplace-often the large, healthy animals needed to keep the population strong. And hunting creates the ideal conditions for overpopulation. After hunting season, the abrupt drop in population leads to less competition among survivors, resulting in a higher birth rate.
If we were really concerned about keeping animals from starving, we would not hunt but instead take steps to reduce the animals' fertility. We would also preserve wolves, mountain lions, coyotes, and other natural predators. Ironically, many deer herds and duck populations are purposely manipulated to produce more and more animals for hunters to kill.
"Hunting fees are a major source of revenue for wildlife management and habitat restoration."
The relatively small fee each hunter pays does not cover the cost of hunting programs or game warden salaries. Hunting fees pay for hunter programs that benefit only hunters, like manipulating animal populations to increase the number of animals available to kill. The public lands that many hunters use are supported by taxpayers, and funds benefiting "nongame" species are scarce.
"Isn't hunting okay as long as I eat what I kill?"
Hunters are harming animals other than the ones they kill and take home. Those who don't die outright often suffer disabling injuries. Additionally, the stress that hunting inflicts on animals-the noise, the fear, and the constant chase-severely restricts their ability to eat adequately and store the fat and energy they need to survive the winter.
Hunting also disrupts migration and hibernation. For animals like wolves, who mate for life and have close-knit families, hunting can severely harm entire communities.
"What about people who have to hunt to survive?"
We have no quarrel with subsistence hunters and fishers who truly have no choice in order to survive. Unfortunately, many "sport" hunters have borrowed from aboriginal tradition and manipulated it into a justification for killing animals for recreation or profit.
"It isn't feasible to stop using animals for basic medical research because of the need to observe the complex interactions of cells, tissues, and organs."
Besides the moral issues involved, clinical and epidemiological studies of humans offer a far more accurate picture without hurting anyone. Observing interactions in animals is no guarantee that the information can be extrapolated to humans. Different species of animals vary enormously in their reactions to toxins and diseases and in their metabolism of drugs. For example, a dose of aspirin that is therapeutic in humans is poisonous to cats and has no effect on fever in horses; benzene causes leukemia in humans but not in mice; insulin produces birth defects in animals but not in humans, and so on. Animal experiments cannot replace careful clinical observation of human beings.
"Hasn't every major medical advance been attributable to experiments on animals?"
Medical historians have shown that improved nutrition, sanitation, and other behavioral and environmental factors-not anything learned from animal experiments-are responsible for the decline in deaths since 1900 from the most common infectious diseases and that medicine has had little to do with increased life expectancy. Many of the most important advances in health are attributable to human studies, among them anesthesia; bacteriology; germ theory; the stethoscope; morphine; radium; penicillin; artificial respiration; antiseptics; the CAT, MRI, and PET scans; the discovery of the relationships between cholesterol and heart disease and between smoking and cancer; the development of x-rays; and the isolation of the virus that causes AIDS. Animal testing played no role in these and many other developments.
"But many treatments we have today were developed on animals-like polio vaccines, for instance."
In fact, two separate bodies of work were done on polio-the in vitro work, which was awarded the Nobel Prize and which did not involve animals, and the subsequent animal tests, in which close to 1 million animals were killed and which the Nobel committee refused to recognize as anything more than wasteful. Also, polio died out just as quickly in areas of the world that did not use the vaccine as in the United States.
However, certainly, some medical developments were discovered through cruel animal tests. But just because animals were used doesn't mean they had to be used or that primitive techniques that were used in the 1800s are valid today. It's impossible to say where we would be if we had declined to experiment on animals, because throughout medical history, very few resources have been devoted to non-animal research methods. In fact, because animal experiments frequently give misleading results with regard to human health, we'd probably be better off if we hadn't relied on them.
"Scientists have the responsibility to use animals to keep looking for cures for the diseases people suffer from."
More human lives could be saved and more suffering spared by educating people on the importance of avoiding fat and cholesterol, quitting smoking, reducing alcohol and other drug consumption, exercising regularly, and cleaning up the environment than by all the animal tests in the world. Animal tests are primitive, and besides, we have modern technology and human clinical tests.
Even if it could be proved that we have no alternative to using animals-which it can't-as George Bernard Shaw once said, "You do not settle whether an experiment is justified or not by merely showing that it is of some use. The distinction is not between useful and useless experiments, but between barbarous and civilized behavior." After all, there are some medical problems that can probably only be cured by testing on unwilling people, but we don't do it, because we recognize that it would be wrong.
"If we couldn't use animals, wouldn't we have to test new drugs on people?"
The choice isn't between animals and people. There's no guarantee that drugs are safe just because they've been tested on animals. Because of the physiological differences between humans and other animals, results from animal tests cannot be accurately extrapolated to humans, leaving us vulnerable to exposure to drugs that can cause serious side effects.
Ironically, unfavorable animal test results do not prevent a drug from being marketed for human use. So much evidence has accumulated about differences in the effects that chemicals have on animals and humans that government officials often do not act on findings from animal studies. In the last two decades, many drugs, including phenacitin, Eferol, Oraflex, Suprol, and Selacryn, were taken off the market after causing hundreds of deaths and/or injuries. In fact, more than half the drugs the Food and Drug Administration approved between 1976 and 1985 were either removed from the market or relabeled because of serious side effects. If the pharmaceutical industry switched from animal experiments to quantum pharmacology and in vitro tests, we would have greater protection, not less.
"If we didn't test on animals, how would we conduct medical research?"
Human clinical and epidemiological studies, cadavers, and computer simulators are faster, more reliable, less expensive, and more humane than animal tests. Ingenious scientists have developed, from human brain cells, a model "microbrain" with which to study tumors, as well as artificial skin and bone marrow. We can now test irritancy on egg membranes, produce vaccines from cell cultures, and perform pregnancy tests using blood samples instead of killing rabbits. As Gordon Baxter, cofounder of Pharmagene Laboratories (a company that uses only human tissues and computers to develop and test drugs) says, "If you have information on human genes, what's the point of going back to animals?"
"Animal experimentation helps animals, too, by advancing veterinary science."
This is like saying it's acceptable to experiment on poor children to benefit rich ones. The point is not whether animal experimentation can be useful to animals or humans; the point is that we do not have the moral right to inflict unnecessary suffering on those who are at our mercy.
"Don't medical students have to dissect animals?"
No, they don't. In fact, more and more medical students are becoming conscientious objectors, and many students now graduate without having used animals; instead they learn by assisting experienced surgeons. In Great Britain, it is against the law for medical students to practice surgery on animals, and British physicians are as competent as those educated elsewhere. Many of the leading U.S. medical schools, including Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, now use innovative, clinical teaching methods instead of old-fashioned animal laboratories. Harvard, for instance, offers a Cardiac Anesthesia Practicum, where students observe human heart bypass operations, instead of dog labs; the Harvard staff who developed it have recommended that it be implemented elsewhere.
"Should we throw out all the drugs that were developed and tested on animals? Would you refuse to take them?"
Unfortunately, a number of things in our society came about through others' exploitation. For instance, many of the roads we drive on were built by slaves. We can't change the past; those who have already suffered and died are lost. But what we can do is change the future by using non-animal research methods from now on.
"Aren't the animals protected by the law from cruelty?"
There is no law in this country that prohibits any experiment, no matter how frivolous or painful. The Animal Welfare Act is very weak and poorly enforced. The Act does not include rats and mice, even though they are the most commonly used animals. Also, the law does not include cold-blooded animals, birds, or animals traditionally used for food. It is basically a housekeeping act; it doesn't prohibit any type of experiment on animals in laboratories-they can be starved, electrically shocked, driven insane, or burned with a blowtorch-as long as it's done in a clean laboratory.
"Most scientists care about animals-they have to, because their research depends on the animals' well-being."
Investigations at our most prestigious institutions show that this is simply not the case. At the City of Hope in California, one of the country's most prominent research facilities, animals starved to death and drowned in their own feces "by accident." Many experimenters become calloused after years of research and don't see the animals' suffering-they treat animals as disposable tools for research. Improvements in the animals' care are fought as "too expensive."
"What about peer review and animal care committees at institutions?"
Many such committees are composed mainly or totally of people with vested interests in the continuation of animal experimentation. It has taken lawsuits to permit public access to committee meetings.
"Aren't cats and dogs killed in pounds anyway? Why not let them be used in experiments to save lives?"
A painless death at an animal shelter is a far cry from a life of severe pain and deprivation in a laboratory before being killed by experimenters.
"Would you allow an experiment that would sacrifice 10 animals to save 10,000 people?"
Suppose the only way to save those 10,000 people was to experiment on one mentally-challenged orphan. If saving people is the goal, wouldn't that be worth it? Most people will agree that it is wrong to sacrifice one human for the "greater good" of others because it would violate that individual's rights. But when it comes to sacrificing animals, the assumption is that human beings have rights while animals do not. Yet there is no logical reason to deny animals the same rights that protect individual humans from being sacrificed for the common good.
"What about experiments that don't harm animals but simply observe them?"
If there really is no harm, we don't object. But "no harm" means that the animals aren't kept isolated in barren, cold steel cages, because the stress and fear of confinement are harmful, as shown by the differences in blood pressure between caged and free animals. Caged animals also suffer by being prevented from performing their normal behaviors and social interactions.
"If you were in a fire and could save only your child or your dog, whom would you choose?"
I would save my child, but that's just instinct. A dog would save her pup. Regardless of whom I save, however, my choice proves nothing about the moral legitimacy of experimenting on animals. I might save my own child instead of my neighbor's, but that hardly proves that experimentation on my neighbor's child is acceptable.
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