Animal Welfare, Animal Rights, Agriculture, and Veterinary Medicine

Changing Social Ethics and the Food Animal Practitioner

Abstract

Many of you have been exposed to the idea of a clear dichotomy between animal welfare and animal rights, with animal rights being the perspective of radicals; extremists, and vegetarians alone, and animal welfare being the acceptable moderate and mainstream position. I want to suggest to you that this is greatly oversimplified, and that, while many extremists do identify themseleved with animal rights, a version of animal rights philosophy, which I will outline today, is becoming the mainstream approach to social thought about animals. According to a recent Parents Magazine survey, for example, over 80% of the public believes that animals have rights. Congress gets more letters on animal welfare/rights issues than any other issue. Thus you need to understand and assess for yourselves the thinking implicit in this new idea, not simply dismiss it out of hand.