The biggest obstacles to reaching our goals are the ignorance of people unwilling to see the truth and the counter-productiveness of groups promoting a message of “humane farming.” Even when we educate people with reality there is always a group out there that undermines the animals with the message—”humane slavery is okay!” This not only steps us back in our work but more importantly increases the demand for more animals born into chattel slavery.
~ James O’Flaherty (November 23, 2011)

Source: Interview with Animal Freedom

I’m a Brazilian writer living in Florida since 1999. I became a vegan when I was 43 years old after I saw an explanation on the internet about all the suffering and injustice that animals are subjected to in the industry from the moment they are born to the moment they are slaughtered. I was shocked and cried for hours. I swore that I’d never again consume anything that had been produced at the expense of animals. That very evening my meal (and my husband’s) was completely plant-based and I never went back to animal products. My only regret is not having been a vegan much earlier in my life.
~ Regina Rheda (November 22, 2011)

Source: Interview with Regina Rheda, abolitionist author and translator

[T]he educative focus of the animal rights movement should be “veganism or bust”. No confusing, inconsistent messages. Instead, only a firm statement that all animal use, irregardless of the measure of suffering, is unacceptable. As such, all available resources should be put towards achieving the goal of abolishing animal use through creative, non-violent vegan advocacy.
~ Ruth Sanderson (November 17, 2011)

Source: Interview with Vegan Outreach Lincoln and East Midlands

I’ve been vegan for more than 8 years. I initially went vegan out of disgust with how industry treated nonhuman animals. Within three months of going vegan, however, I had learned a lot more about ethics and the legal and economic situation surrounding exploitation, and it was clear to me that use, not treatment, was the problem. At that time, I was an abolitionist waiting to happen. Three years later, I studied a lot more about the legal and economic structural limitations of welfarism through the work of Gary Francione, and became an abolitionist by the end of 2006.
~ Dan Cudahy (November 15, 2011)

Source: Interview with Dan Cudahy of Unpopular Vegan Essays

The promotion of ethical veganism for all uses of non-human animals is a way that combines a number of individual campaigns and does not focus on a particular use of non-human animals. It is the way to oppose the exploitation of all non-human animals.
~ Nicholas Pendergrast (November 11, 2011)

Source: Interview with Nicholas Pendergrast of Australia’s ARA, Inc. and Vegan Perth

[G]iven that this idea of equal consideration is so central to an ethical understanding of our relationship with animals, why do we so rarely think about it? In a food culture that’s become quite obsessed with producing and consuming food in ways that are morally just, why do we consistently avoid the issue of animal sentience, and the basic rights that such sentience guarantees? Why do otherwise socially conscious consumers fail to ask if an animal’s death is a fair price to pay to satisfy our carnivorous palates?

My sense is that we’ve avoided these questions for a single reason, one that Gary Francione identified decades ago: Farm animals are legally property. And their status as property poses an enormous, and enormously unrecognized, barrier to our recognition of their basic right to equal consideration.

Objects are legitimately property. Sentient beings—beings capable of suffering—should not be. There’s no denying that free-range systems are generally more concerned with animal welfare. But it’s very difficult (if not impossible) for the owner of farm animals to give their “property” equal consideration because their status as property skews all consideration toward the owner’s interest. There are gradations of freedom, and an owner of an animal raised to produce meat is only going to go so far down that scale. Otherwise, there would be no need to own the animal.

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If the ethics of eating matter in the least, then our understanding of animals must begin with this premise. Above all else, we must acknowledge that our shared sentience means that humans have a moral responsibility to treat farm animals differently than we treat objects. Specifically, as the philosopher Gary Francione has argued, all beings capable of suffering are entitled to the “principle of equal consideration.” What this means is that, before using an animal in any way, we should evaluate what’s at stake for everyone involved. We must do so, moreover, on the primary grounds of our shared sentience, thereby downplaying the many differences between humans and farm animals. Just because a farm animal cannot do math or send greeting cards doesn’t mean that its capacity for suffering is in any way fundamentally different from our own.

I admit that making this distinction can be hard. Human accomplishments and abilities seem to so obviously distinguish us that downplaying our differences might appear to be nothing but a philosophical gambit. But consider: The ultimate problem with giving primary moral consideration to the amazing feats that humans can exclusively accomplish is that doing so requires us to assess all humans in such terms as well. In other words, we would have to undertake different evaluations of suffering for the mentally ill, the infirm, infants, the elderly, those with low IQs, etc. If sentience took a back seat to cognitive ability or skill sets, the moral value of human life would become dependent on variations in intelligence and ability. Needless to say, such a moral code would have horrific consequences.

Let me try to bring this argument down to Earth. Say I’m stranded on an island with a pig. And say the island is stocked with an endless supply of fruits, vegetables, grains, and nuts—enough to feed us both. Am I justified in killing the pig?

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