Welfare Doesn’t Help Animals

It’s been said many times, that the difference between ‘animal welfare‘ and ‘animal liberation‘ is – welfarists want bigger cages, liberationists want empty cages.

And this is one reason why… (click free range chickens to see what “free range” is in reality).

Words such as “free range” may allow the consumer feel better with sentimentality about chickens roaming the paddock (a New Zealand word for field or pasture) at will, but, how does the egg-laying hen cramped in a barn never seeing sunlight or cow on the way to slaughter agree?

For example, the current campaign in New Zealand, Australia and United Kingdom, to oppose the religious exemptions for humane slaughter. This means animals are being slaughtered without stunning first. It does not matter how well the animal is treated during their unnaturally shorterned life, the use of any animal for any reason for food is cruel and exploitation. Humane slaughter is still SLAUGHTER.

(This religious slaughter is discussed at Ban Religious Slaughter in New Zealand,
and NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT overturns ban on hideously cruel ritual slaughter by Loredana Versaci, two change.org petitions, that are still open for more signatures.)

An abolitionist vegan would say, the world should be vegan, and to support the ban on overturning of exemptions would suggest that any slaughter is acceptable. And to campaign for more humane slaughter is a welfarist position.

A liberationist vegan might say that animals shouldn’t be slaughtered at all, and seek to “liberate” them from their cages. Or perhaps be realistic about a situation and know that until the world goes vegan, to ignore the lack of pre-slaughter stunning inflicts more torture and unnecessary cruelty until then.

Chickens raised for slaughter

Source: Farm Sanctuary at Flickr. “Feel free to distribute freely for not-for-profit use, but please credit Farm Sanctuary” (photo linked to Farm Sanctuary, but uploaded at photobucket.

But what is the effect of more “humane” methods of raising animals for food or methods of slaughter? (I am not suggesting there are degrees of humaneness, rather that is how these issues are foisted on consumers)

For the life of an individual animal, it might be bigger cages, or equivalent depending on the animal involved. For all animals it is a set back in terms of the fight for rights.

Shoppers opt for ‘freedom food’ chickens

Sales of the RSPCA’s Freedom Food chicken is up £55 million from £16.4 million to £71.6 million since March last year, compared to a drop of more than £26 million for standard chicken, figures from Kantar Worldpanel show.

The amount of Freedom Food chicken sold in supermarkets increased by more than 15 million kilos, compared to a decrease of 11 million for standard chicken, according to the research.

The result of this “freedom” foods”*, is an increase in the sale of dead chicken body parts, by four million kilos.

This effect of increasing sales due to consumers feeling less guilt is dealt with by Matt Ball, of Vegan Outreach, when he asks the question: Does working for or supporting welfare measures harm the longer-term goal of bringing about liberation?

In this essay, Ball quotes the Brazilian Landless Farmers (Subverting the current system to achieve more democracy): “Expand the floor of the cage before you try to break out.”

Matt Ball takes the position, how would you feel if it was you? In a cage being tortured for day after day. Would you want people agitating for change , no matter how small, and then keep fighting with every incremental change, Or would you prefer to have a hard-line uncompromising absolutist say, if the prisoner cannot be free all the way, then let them suffer until we win their freedom.

Fighting for incremental reforms may make one a “welfarist” (oh the horror!) but what is a label? if that person is still fighting for liberation, something the critics often fail to.

However, the fight must go on, even if reforms are gained, it is not as if liberationists give up the fight, they just know there are other battles, life and death issues that are out there, and will stay out there, until all animals are free, until all cages are empty.

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*Freedom Foods, a label from the RSPCA on animal products. Welfarism in action. Regulating the cruelty, not preventing it.

Feedback welcome.

Vegan Extremism

Well, tonight thank god it’s them, instead of you
Bob Geldolf and Midge Ure

Think of the animal on the farm, it doesn’t matter if it’s free-range, organic, or factory, they all end the same way, hung upside down by the hind leg to have their throat slit.

Think of the animal in the lab, with electrodes in his head or shampoo in eyes or oven cleaner on its back or addictive drugs in its veins, or sensory deprivation.

Think of the dog tied up on a chain in the backyard, with no food or water, and cover in snow with concrete to sleep on. Think of the 200,000 bulls to be slaughtered for a religious festival to appease some goddess.

Image via Wikipedia

Think of the sheep to be skinned and turned into shoes. Ugg!

Think of the cow to be raped and have her babies stolen for her to have them locked in a tiny cage then called veal.

Think of the battery hen, in a cage with three others, no room to turn around, breathing in ammonia and decaying chicken all day to produce eggs.

Think of the kittens turned into footballs, bound with gaffer tape and kicked by bored teenagers.

Image via Wikipedia

Think of the fish, turtles, birds eating tar and so covered black sticky oil they drown unable to escape, the turtles eating plastic bags thinking they are jelly fish, think of the baby seal creatures getting stuck in plastic 6-pack rings, and growing larger with that cutting into them.

Think of the insects crushed in the peanut butter machines.

Think of the hare or the fox or the lion or kangaroo hunted down by rich white elitists on horses or drunk hooligans in trucks and then shot dead while their babies starve without them.

Think of the bees, who fly the equivalent of a trip around the world, collecting nectar for their babies, to have that food stolen and turned into a teaspoon of honey, that’s it, that’s all, they are worked to death for a teaspoon of honey.

Image by Farm Sanctuary via Flickr

Think of the pigs whose heart valves are cut out and put in the body of person who lived on a diet of bacon. And think, why is it the animals who are most like us, are the ones that we eat the most often.

Think of the whale with an exploding harpoon shot into their head so some scientists can discover a cure for ‘empty menu syndrome’.

Think of the baby seal unable to run away having its head smashed open with a hakapik in the name of ‘employment’.

Think of the horses made to sit on chairs, the monkeys made to drive cars, the lions made to jump through hoops of fire, elephants made to dance, and decide of that is “entertaining”.

Think of the dog kept in a cage its whole life until one day it has its skin cut off its back while it is still alive, feeling every stroke of the knife.

Think of the animal that will never know sunlight or peace or grass and dirt beneath its feet or clean air to breathe or know its mothers love.

Think of the animal as it takes its last breath in agony and wonders “why me?”

And to fight this is called EXTREMIST?
To be vegan is extremist?
To believe in animal liberation is extremist?

Really?

Feedback welcome.