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The animal rights (AR) movement, sometimes called the animal liberation, animal personhood, or animal advocacy movement, is a

social movement A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and may ...

that seeks an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, an end to the status of animals as property, and an end to their use in the

research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...

food Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is inge ...

clothing Clothing (also known as clothes, apparel, and attire) are items worn on the body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin sheets of materials and natural ...

, and

entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousa ...

industries.

Terms and factions

All animal liberationists believe that the individual interests of non-human animals deserve recognition and protection, but the movement can be split into two broad camps. Animal rights advocates believe that these basic interests confer moral rights of some kind on the animals, and/or ought to confer legal rights on them;"Animal rights," ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 2007. see, for example, the work of

Tom Regan Tom Regan (; November 28, 1938 – February 17, 2017) was an American philosopher who specialized in animal rights theory. He was professor emeritus of philosophy at North Carolina State University, where he had taught from 1967 until his reti ...

. Utilitarian liberationists, on the other hand, do not believe that animals possess moral rights, but argue, on utilitarian grounds —

utilitarianism In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals. Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different charact ...

in its simplest form advocating that we base moral decisions on the greatest happiness of the greatest number — that, because animals have the ability to suffer, their suffering must be taken into account in any moral philosophy. To exclude animals from that consideration, they argue, is a form of discrimination that they call

speciesism Speciesism () is a term used in philosophy regarding the treatment of individuals of different species. The term has several different definitions within the relevant literature. A common element of most definitions is that speciesism involves t ...

; see, for example, the work of

Peter Singer Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher, currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, ...

.Taylor, Angus. ''Animals and Ethics''. Broadview Press, 2003, pp. 153 ff. Despite these differences, the terms "animal liberation" and "animal rights" are generally used interchangeably. Factional division has also been characterized as that between the reformist or mainstream faction and the radical abolitionist and direct action factions. The mainstream faction is largely professionalized and focuses on soliciting donations and gaining media representation. Actors in the reformist movement believe that humans should stop ''abusing'' animals. They employ activities that include moral shocks. It has been noted that the power of the animal rights movement in the United States is centralized in professionalized nonprofit organizations that aim to improve animal welfare. The abolitionist faction believes that humans should stop ''using'' animals altogether. Gary Francione, a leader in abolitionism, formed his approach in response to the traditional movement's focus on policy reform. Members of the abolitionist faction view policy reform as counterproductive and rely on nonviolent education and moral persuasion in their activities. They see the promotion of veganism as a means of creating an antispeciesist culture and abolishing animal agriculture. The direct action or militant faction includes in its activities property damage, animal releases, intimidation, and direct violence, aiming to change society through force and fear. Animal rights actors often reject this faction, pointing to violence as a counterproductive tactic that invites repression (e.g., the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act) and does not economically or politically challenge extant systems. Smaller factions include groups focused around faith-based animal rights theory and

veganarchists The anarchist philosophical and political movement has some connections to elements of the animal liberation movement. Many anarchists are vegetarian or vegan (or veganarchists) and have played a role in combating perceived injustices against ...

, whose approach is characterized by a critique of capitalism on the grounds that it has led to mass nonhuman, human, and environmental exploitation. Such factionalizing, researchers have pointed out, is common to social movements and plays a role in sustaining their health.

History

The modern Animal Rights Movement traces back to the animal protection movement in Victorian England, which was initiated by aristocratic moral crusaders in response to the poor treatment of urban workhorses and stray dogs. Other early influences include:

Upton Sinclair Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in seve ...

's 1906 novel ''

The Jungle ''The Jungle'' is a 1906 novel by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair. Sinclair's primary purpose in describing the meat industry and its working conditions was to advance socialism in the United States. However, most readers wer ...

'', which drew attention to slaughterhouse operations;

Henry Stephens Salt Henry Shakespear Stephens Salt (; 20 September 1851 – 19 April 1939) was an English writer and campaigner for social reform in the fields of prisons, schools, economic institutions, and the treatment of animals. He was a noted ethical vegeta ...

's treatises on nonhuman animal rights, which drew from human abolitionist arguments for recognizing the personhood of people considered to be property; and the short-lived Fruitlands agrarian commune, which required its residents to eat a vegan diet. Peter Singer

The contemporary movement is regarded as having been founded in the UK in the early 1970s by a group of Oxford university post-graduate philosophy students, now known as the "

Oxford Group The Oxford Group was a Christian organization (first known as ''First Century Christian Fellowship'') founded by the American Lutheran minister Frank Buchman in 1921. Buchman believed that fear and selfishness were the root of all problems. Fur ...

".Ethics: Animals
." ''Encyclopædia Britannica Online''. 2007. The group was led by Rosalind and Stanley Godlovitch, graduate students of philosophy who had recently become vegetarians. The Godlovitches met John Harris and David Wood, also philosophy graduates, who were soon persuaded of the arguments in favour of animal rights and themselves became vegetarian. The group began to actively raise the issue with pre-eminent Oxford moral philosophers, including Professor Richard Hare, both personally and in lectures. Their approach was based not on sentimentality ("kindness to dumb animals"), but on the moral rights of animals. They soon developed (and borrowed) a range of powerful arguments in support of their views, so that Oxford clinical psychologist Richard Ryder, who was shortly to become part of the group, writes that "rarely has a cause been so rationally argued and so intellectually well armed."Cox, Simon and Vadon, Richard
"How animal rights took on the world"
, BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 18 June 2006. It was a 1965 article by novelist Brigid Brophy in ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...

'' which was pivotal in helping to spark the movement. Brophy wrote: The philosophers found this article and were inspired by its vigorous unsentimental polemic. At about the same time, Ryder wrote three letters to ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'' in response to Brophy's arguments. Brophy read Ryder's letters and put him in touch with the Godlovitches and John Harris, who had begun to plan a book about the issue which was also partly inspired by Brophy's polemic. The philosophers had also been to see Brophy about the possibility of a book of essays on the subject.Ryder, Richard. ''Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes Towards Speciesism''. Berg, 2000, p. 6. They initially thought that a book with contributions from Brophy, Ruth Harrison, Maureen Duffy, and other well-known writers might be of interest to publishers, but after an initial proposal was turned down by the first publisher they approached, Giles Gordon of Victor Gollancz suggested that the work would be more viable if it included their own writing. This was the idea that became "Animals, Men, and Morals' (see below). In 1970, Ryder coined the phrase "

," first using it in a privately printed pamphlet to describe the assignment of value to the interests of beings on the basis of their membership of a particular species.Ryder, Richard D
"All beings that feel pain deserve human rights"
, ''The Guardian'', 6 August 2005. Ryder subsequently became a contributor to ''Animals, Men and Morals: An Inquiry into the Maltreatment of Non-humans'' (1972), edited by John Harris and the Godlovitches, a work that became highly influential, as did Rosalind Godlovitch's essay "Animal and Morals," published the same year. It was in a review of ''Animals, Men and Morals'' for the ''

New York Review of Books New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...

'' that Australian philosopher

first put forward his basic arguments, based on

and drawing an explicit comparison between

women's liberation The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...

and animal liberation. Out of the review came Singer's '' Animal Liberation'', published in 1975, now regarded by many as the "bible" of the movement. Other books regarded as important include philosopher

's ''The Case for Animal Rights'' (1983); ''Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism'' by

James Rachels James Webster Rachels (May 30, 1941 – September 5, 2003) was an American philosopher who specialized in ethics and animal rights. Biography Rachels was born in Columbus, Georgia, and graduated from Mercer University in 1962. He received his Ph ...

(1990); ''Animals, Property, and the Law'' (1995) by legal scholar

Gary Francione Gary Lawrence Francione (born May 1954) is an American academic in the fields of law and philosophy. He is Board of Governors Professor of Law and Katzenbach Scholar of Law and Philosophy at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He is also a visitin ...

, ''Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals'' by another legal scholar Steven M. Wise (2000); and ''Animal Rights and Moral Philosophy'' by Julian H. Franklin (2005).Animal Rights: The Modern Animal Rights Movement
." ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. 2007.

Gender, class, and other factors

Another factor feeding the animal rights movement was revulsion to televised slaughters. In the United States, many public protest slaughters were held in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the National Farmers Organization. Protesting low prices for meat, farmers would kill their own animals in front of media representatives. The carcasses were wasted and not eaten. However, this effort backfired because it angered television audiences to see animals being needlessly and wastefully killed. The movement predominately comprises upper-class and middle-class white female members, owing this to its associations with the Victorian English animal protection movement and American feminism and environmentalism movements. As such, the movement is widely associated in public spheres with women, femininity, and effeminacy. Public perception of the movement is influenced by gendered evaluations; movement outsiders tend to view activists as irrational by virtue of overly emotional sentiments. Aware of this, activists have strategically incorporated men into positions of leadership and theory production, in order to legitimize the movement and counter popular beliefs about the primacy of emotion in the animal rights movement. This tactic relies on the popular perception of men as rational and not given to emotion, and follows a trend in social movement activism that seeks to counter traditional associations with femininity and private spheres by emphasizing rationality, rights, and justice. In one case study, targets of anti-hunting activism used class and gender markers to evaluate activists' claims. Hunters' associations of irrationality with femininity and of inexperience in hunting and wilderness with white-collar positions constituted the reasons for their dismissal of activists' claims. In contrast, hunters framed hunting in logical, scientific, and altruistic terms, thus legitimating hunting, termed wildlife management, as a protective measure. It has been noted that the composition of the movement may discourage the mobilization of particular demographics. A content analysis of magazine covers from highly visible animal rights organizations (PeTA and VegNews) revealed that most featured members were white, female, and thin. With this, and with the composition of the movement being mostly white, female, and thin, it has been suggested that animal rights media depict an activist ideal-type with such characteristics, and that this may mobilize thin white females while deterring others. Racialized, sexualized, and size-focused campaign tactics may also serve to deter potential members from joining the movement. Racialized tactics include the appropriation of African slavery and Holocaust language and imagery, and have been deemed insensitive and impugned by nonwhite communities. In addition, the movement has maintained racist stereotypes about nonwhite individuals' predisposition toward animal cruelty; these stereotypes arose in post-slavery U.S. and Britain, where nonwhites were deemed by law and by society to have a tendency toward animal cruelty. Sexualization of "ideal" women is used as a mobilization tactic, but reduces support for ethics-based campaigns and may be counterproductive, alienating women that do not have "ideal" body types. Sizeism is used as a tactic to frame veganism as a healthy and positive lifestyle, aligning with a popular association of fatness with moral failure. These tactics may contribute to gender inequality because unrealistic and sexualized representations of women are linked to their societal devaluation. Its lack of diverse membership may decrease the movement's legitimacy and ability to mobilize, as members of marginalized groups are more likely to mobilize when they are represented in the movement. An inclusive movement with strong group solidarity would decrease opportunity costs associated with participating (e.g., social stigmatization, lack of alternatives, legal persecution) and thus serve to increase and sustain participation in the movement.

Current status of the movement

Marsz Wyzwolenia Zwierzat - Stop animal agriculture

The movement is no longer viewed as hovering on the fringe.Jonsson, Patrik
"Tracing an animal-rights philosophy"
, ''Christian Science Monitor'', 9 October 2001. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was joined by a wide variety of academics and professionals, including lawyers, physicians, psychologists, veterinarians, and former vivisectionists, and is now a common subject of study in philosophy departments in Europe and North America. Animal law courses are taught in 92 out of 180 law schools in the United States, and the movement has gained the support of senior legal scholars, including

Alan Dershowitz Alan Morton Dershowitz ( ; born September 1, 1938) is an American lawyer and former law professor known for his work in U.S. constitutional law and American criminal law. From 1964 to 2013, he taught at Harvard Law School, where he was appoin ...

Dershowitz, Alan. ''Rights from Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights'', 2004, pp. 198–99, and "Darwin, Meet Dershowitz," ''The Animals' Advocate'', Winter 2002, volume 21. and

Laurence Tribe Laurence Henry Tribe (born October 10, 1941) is an American legal scholar who is a University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He previously served as the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard Law School. A constitutional law sc ...

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

. Chapters of animal rights law have been created in several state

bar association A bar association is a professional association of lawyers as generally organized in countries following the Anglo-American types of jurisprudence. The word bar is derived from the old English/European custom of using a physical railing to separ ...

s, and resolutions related to animal rights are regularly proposed within the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...

."'Personhood' Redefined: Animal Rights Strategy Gets at the Essence of Being Human"
, Association of American Medical Colleges. Retrieved 12 July 2006. In the 1980s, the movement became associated with

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

subculture A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, poli ...

and

ideologies An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied pri ...

, particularly

straight edge Straight edge (sometimes abbreviated sXe or signified by XXX or X) is a subculture of hardcore punk whose adherents refrain from using alcohol, tobacco, and other recreational drugs, in reaction to the excesses of punk subculture. For some, thi ...

hardcore punk Hardcore punk (also known as simply hardcore) is a punk rock music genre and subculture that originated in the late 1970s. It is generally faster, harder, and more aggressive than other forms of punk rock. Its roots can be traced to earlier punk ...

in the United States and

anarcho-punk Anarcho-punk (also known as anarchist punk or peace punk) is ideological subgenre of punk rock that promotes anarchism. Some use the term broadly to refer to any punk music with anarchist lyrical content, which may figure in crust punk, hardcor ...

in the United Kingdom. This association continues on into the 21st century, as evidenced by the prominence of vegan punk events such as Fluff Fest in Europe. Michael Socarras of

Greenberg Traurig Greenberg Traurig is a multinational law firm founded in Miami in 1967. As of 2022, the Greenberg Traurig is the 9th largest law firm in the United States. The firm has 43 offices in the United States, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and ...

told the Association of American Medical Colleges: "There is a very important shift under way in the manner in which many people in law schools and in the legal profession think about animals. This shift has not yet reached popular opinion. However, in

he U.S. He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' i ...

social change has and can occur through the courts, which in many instances do not operate as democratic institutions. Therefore, the evolution in elite legal opinion is extremely significant ..."

Philosophical and legal aims

The movement aims to include animals in the

moral community Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...

by putting the basic interests of non-human animals on an equal footing with the basic interests of human beings. A basic interest would be, for example, not being made to suffer pain on behalf of other individual human or non-human animals. The aim is to remove animals from the sphere of property and to award them

personhood Personhood or personality is the status of being a person. Defining personhood is a controversial topic in philosophy and law and is closely tied with legal and political concepts of citizenship, equality, and liberty. According to law, only a leg ...

; that is, to see them awarded legal rights to protect their basic interests. Liberationists argue that animals appear to have value in law only in relation to their usefulness or benefit to their owners, and are awarded no intrinsic value whatsoever. In the United States, for example, state and federal laws formulate the rules for the treatment of animals in terms of their status as property. Liberationists point out that

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

Animal Cruelty Laws apply only to pets living under the custody of human beings and exclude birds, deer, rabbits, squirrels, and other wild animals not owned by humans, ignoring that jurisdiction for such creatures comes under the domain of state wildlife officers. The U.S. Animal Welfare Act excludes "pet stores ... state and country fairs, livestock shows,

rodeo Rodeo () is a competitive equestrian sport that arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain and Mexico, expanding throughout the Americas and to other nations. It was originally based on the skills required of the working va ...

s, purebred dog and cat shows, and any fairs or exhibitions intended to advance agricultural arts and sciences." There is no mention in the law that such activities already fall under the jurisdiction of state agriculture departments. The Department of Agriculture interprets the Act as also excluding cold-blooded animals, and warm-blooded animals not "used for research, teaching, testing, experimentation ... exhibition purposes, or as a pet, ndfarm animals used for food, fiber, or production purposes". The Seattle-based

Great Ape Project The Great Ape Project (GAP), founded in 1993, is an international organization of primatologists, anthropologists, ethicists, and others who advocate a United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Great Apes that would confer basic legal right ...

(GAP), founded by Peter Singer, is campaigning for the United Nations to adopt its

Declaration on Great Apes The Great Ape Project (GAP), founded in 1993, is an international organization of primatologists, anthropologists, ethicists, and others who advocate a United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Great Apes that would confer basic legal right ...

, which would see

chimpanzee The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative th ...

gorilla Gorillas are herbivorous, predominantly ground-dwelling great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or fi ...

s and

orangutan Orangutans are great apes native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia. They are now found only in parts of Borneo and Sumatra, but during the Pleistocene they ranged throughout Southeast Asia and South China. Classified in the genus ...

s included in a "community of equals" with

human beings Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, an ...

. The declaration wants to extend to the non-human

ape Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a clade of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and as well as Europe in prehistory), which together with its sister g ...

s the protection of three basic interests: the right to life, the protection of individual liberty, and the prohibition of torture

Legal changes influenced by the movement

Regarding the campaign to change the status of animals as property, the animal liberation movement has seen success in several countries. In 1992,

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

amended its

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

to recognize animals as ''beings'' and not ''things''. However, in 1999 the Swiss constitution was completely rewritten. A decade later, Germany guaranteed rights to animals in a 2002 amendment to its constitution, becoming the first

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

member to do so. The

German Civil Code German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

had been amended correspondingly in 1997. Perhaps the greatest success of the animal liberation movement has been the granting of basic rights to five

great ape The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the east ...

species in New Zealand in 1999. Their use is now forbidden in research, testing or teaching. Other governments had also previously implemented a ban on these experiments, such as the UK government in 1986. Some other countries have also banned or severely restricted the use of non-human great apes in research. Also, on 17 May 2013, India declared that all cetaceans have the status of "nonhuman persons." In the United States, there is an Animal Welfare Act that was produced in 1966. This law protects animals in acts of research, transportation, and sale. Generally, animals are protected from any torture, neglect, or killing. There have been many amendments made towards this act to keep it updated. While there is only one act covering the entire United States, there are more current laws surrounding animal rights, which vary by state.

Strategy and tactics

Animal liberation antifa demo (10761915335)

Use of new information communication technologies (ICTs)

New media New media describes communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for ...

, such as the Internet and email, have been used by Animal Rights Movement actors and countermovement actors in a variety of capacities. Radical factions in the movement rely on websites, blogs, podcasts, videos, and online forums to engage in vegan outreach and other mobilization efforts and build alliances, thus overcoming exclusion by dominant factions. The use of Internet has allowed the animal rights movement to spread transnationally. For example, the Istanbul Animal Rights Movement's theory and activities draw from those of various countries that have spread through the use of Internet. The Internet is also used by activists to build community and avoid stigmatization, and may be a preferred means of activism for marginalized members, such as individuals who are fat. In 2001,

Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) was an international animal rights campaign to close down Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), Europe's largest contract Animal testing, animal-testing laboratory. HLS tests medical and non-medical substances on ...

(SHAC), an animal rights group founded in the UK with the aim of ending vivisection practices by

Huntingdon Life Sciences Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) was a contract research organisation (CRO) founded in 1951 in Cambridgeshire, England. It had two laboratories in the United Kingdom and one in the United States. With over 1,600 staff, it was until 2015 the larges ...

(HLS), published the names of targets associated with HLS on its website. SHAC.net listed targets for "naming and shaming," emphasized and sent email action alerts, and facilitated written and digital communication between activists and targets. When the UK government later prevented SHAC from publishing reports from the ALF on its website, an activist created the

Bite Back ''Bite Back'' is a Malaysian-registered website and magazine that promotes the cause of the animal liberation movement, and specifically the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). ICTs have facilitated undercover surveillance efforts by activists who use video cameras, Internet, and television to collect and disseminate evidence of cruelty to animals, in order to attract publicity to and mobilize support for the movement.

Undercover surveillance

In 1981, animal rights activists exposed supposedly unhealthy and cruel conditions of monkeys in a research laboratory in Silver Spring, Maryland. Police raided the research facility, and because the activists had (illegally) notified media of the raid, it was televised, attracting publicity to the activists' cause. In the UK in 1990, Mike Huskisson and Melody McDonald videotaped Wilhelm Feldberg performing illegal research; the video evidence was made public and Feldberg's lab was summarily closed down. SHAC was founded after Zoe Broughton conducted undercover surveillance of vivisectionists and discovered evidence of nonhuman animal abuse. Footage and images from undercover surveillance activity are often circulated offline and on the Internet and used to deliver a moral shock that will mobilize viewers to participate in the movement. Members in the abolitionist faction, specifically those in Francione's camp, argue that the graphic depictions of suffering discovered in undercover work result in a focus on treatment, as opposed to use, and that this focus, while useful in securing welfare reform, is counterproductive to abolishing animal exploitation.

Boycott

Animal liberationists usually

boycott A boycott is an act of nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organization, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict som ...

industries that use animals. Foremost among these is

factory farming Intensive animal farming or industrial livestock production, also known by its opponents as factory farming and macro-farms, is a type of intensive agriculture, specifically an approach to animal husbandry designed to maximize production, while ...

, which produces the majority of meat, dairy products, and eggs in industrialized nations. The transportation of farm animals for slaughter, which often involves their

live export Live export is the commercial transport of livestock across national borders. The trade involves a number of countries with the Australian live export industry being one of the largest exporters in the global trade. According to the Australi ...

, has in recent years been a major issue for animal rights groups, particularly in the UK and Scandinavia. The vast majority of animal rights advocates adopt vegetarian or

vegan Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal product—particularly in diet—and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. An individual who follows the diet or philosophy is known as a vegan. Di ...

diets. Singer, Peter. '' Animal Liberation'', second edition, Random House, 1975; this edition 1990, p. 160ff. They may also avoid clothes made of animal skins, such as leather shoes, and will not use products known to contain animal

byproduct A by-product or byproduct is a secondary product derived from a production process, manufacturing process or chemical reaction; it is not the primary product or service being produced. A by-product can be useful and marketable or it can be consid ...

s. Goods containing ingredients that have been

tested on animals Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and ''in vivo'' testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments that seek to control the variables that affect the behavior or biological system under study. This ...

are also avoided where possible. Company-wide

s are common. The

Procter & Gamble The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/consumer hea ...

corporation, for example, tests many of its products on animals, leading many animal rights advocates to boycott the company's products entirely, whether tested on animals or not. There is a growing trend in the American movement towards devoting all resources to vegetarian outreach. The 9.8 billion animals killed there for food every year far exceeds the number of animals used in other ways. Groups such as

Vegan Outreach Vegan Outreach is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1993. Originally known as Animal Liberation Action (ALA), the group was founded by Matt Ball and Jack Norris in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1993. History As members of the animal rights ...

and

Compassion Over Killing Animal Outlook, formerly known as Compassion Over Killing (COK), is a nonprofit animal advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C., headed since May 2021 by Executive Director Cheryl Leahy, who succeeded Erica Meier. Formed in 1995, as a hi ...

devote their time to exposing factory-farming practices by publishing information for consumers and by organizing undercover investigations.

Moral shocks

Moral shock is a tactic that involves drawing targets' attention to a particular depiction of a situation in order to cause outrage and catalyze targets to support a movement or claim. In the Animal Rights Movement, moral shocks are often used in the form of graphic depictions that detail the brutalization of nonhuman animals.

Farm Animal Rights Movement Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM) is an international nonprofit organization working to promote a vegan lifestyle and animal rights through public education and grass roots outreach.

(FARM), a popular animal rights organization, has used moral shocks in its pay-per-view campaign, in which passersby were paid a dollar to watch a graphic video of nonhuman animal suffering. Nonhuman animals depicted in moral shocks often display characteristics similar to those of human infants (e.g., large heads and eyes, crying or whimpering, small, mammalian). There is an ongoing debate within the Movement about the effectiveness of moral shocks. It has been found that many animal rights activists join after being exposed to moral shocks, and that moral shocks given to strangers are more likely to mobilize potential participants than are preexisting social networks; there is research that has found the opposite, however. Conversely, moral shocks that target the public at large (e.g., those used in vegan outreach) are less likely to be effective than those that have targets more distant from and less visible to the public (e.g., vivisectors).

Non-violent action

Non-violent resistance Nonviolent resistance (NVR), or nonviolent action, sometimes called civil resistance, is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, c ...

civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hen ...

consists of breaking the law without using violence. This may include the blocking of public roads or entrances, sometimes by chaining or gluing oneself to the ground or to doors. The animal rights movement has espoused these tactics during the 2019

Animal Rebellion Animal Rebellion is an animal and climate justice movement with the stated aim of compelling government action towards a plant-based food system. Their justification for the introduction of such a system is the impact of animal agriculture on c ...

protests in London, leading to several dozen arrests.

Direct action

The movement espouses a number of approaches, and is bitterly divided on the issue of direct action and violence, with very few activists or writers publicly advocating the latter tactic as a justified method to use. Most groups reject violence against persons, intimidation, threats, and the destruction of property: for example, the

British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection Cruelty Free International is an animal protection and advocacy group that campaigns for the abolition of all animal experiments. They organise certification of cruelty-free products which are marked with the symbol of a leaping bunny. It wa ...

(BUAV) and

Animal Aid Animal Aid is a British animal rights organisation, founded in 1977 by Jean Pink. The group campaigns peacefully against the consumption of animals as food and against animal cruelty such as their use for medical research—and promotes a cruel ...

. These groups concentrate on education and research, including carrying out undercover investigations of animal-testing facilities. There is some evidence of cooperation between the BUAV and the ALF: for example, the BUAV used to donate office space for the use of the ALF in London in the early 1980s. Newkirk, Ingrid. ''Free the animals''.

Lantern Books Lantern Publishing & Media is an American non-profit book publisher founded in 2020, having acquired the assets of Booklight Inc. DBA Lantern Books in 2019. Booklight was founded in 1999, and first located in Union Square (New York City), before mo ...

, 2000. Other groups concentrate on education, research, media campaigns, and undercover investigations. See, for example,

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA; , stylized as PeTA) is an American animal rights nonprofit organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, and led by Ingrid Newkirk, its international president. PETA reports that PETA entities have ...

(PETA). A third category of activists operates using the

leaderless resistance Leaderless resistance, or phantom cell structure, is a Rebellion, social resistance strategy in which small, independent groups (Clandestine cell system, covert cells), or individuals (a solo cell is called a "Lone wolf (terrorism), lone wolf"), ch ...

model, working in

covert cell A clandestine cell system is a method for organizing a group of people (such as resistance fighters, sleeper agents, mobsters, or terrorists) such that such people can more effectively resist penetration by an opposing organization (such as ...

s consisting of small numbers of trusted friends, or of one individual acting alone. These cells engage in

direct action Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those actions that appeal to oth ...

: for example by carrying out raids to release animals from laboratories and farms, using names like the

Animal Liberation Front The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is an international, Leaderless resistance, leaderless, decentralized political and social resistance movement that engages in and promotes non-violent direct action in protest against incidents of animal cruelt ...

(ALF); or by boycotting and targeting anyone or any business associated with the controversial animal testing lab,

(HLS), using a campaign name like

(SHAC). Some arson,

property destruction Property damage (or cf. criminal damage in England and Wales) is damage or destruction of real or tangible personal property, caused by negligence, willful destruction, or act of nature. It is similar to vandalism and arson (destroying proper ...

and

vandalism Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property. The term includes property damage, such as graffiti and defacement directed towards any property without permission of the owner. The term f ...

has been linked to various animal rights groups Activists who have carried out or threatened acts of physical violence have operated using the names;

Animal Rights Militia The Animal Rights Militia (ARM) is a banner used by animal rights activists who engage in direct action utilizing a diversity of tactics that ignores the Animal Liberation Front's policy of taking all necessary precautions to avoid harm to human ...

(ARM),

Justice Department A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

, Revolutionary Cells—Animal Liberation brigade (RCALB), Hunt Retribution Squad (HRS) and the Militant Forces Against Huntingdon Life Sciences (MFAH). Some activists have attempted

blackmail Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to fa ...

and other illegal activities, such as the intimidation campaign to close Darley Oaks farm, which involved

hate mail Hate mail (as electronic, posted, or otherwise) is a form of harassment, usually consisting of invective and potentially intimidating or threatening comments towards the recipient. Hate mail often contains exceptionally abusive, foul or otherwise ...

, malicious phonecalls,

bomb threats A bomb threat or bomb scare is a threat, usually verbal or written, to detonate an explosive or incendiary device to cause property damage, death, injuries, and/or incite fear, whether or not such a device actually exists. History Bomb threats ...

, arson attacks and property destruction, climaxing in the theft of the corpse of Gladys Hammond, the owners' mother-in-law, from a

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

grave. Over a thousand ALF attacks in one year in the UK alone caused £2.6M of damage to property, prompting some experts to state that animal rights now tops the list of causes that prompt violence in the UK. There are also a growing number of "

open rescue In animal rights and animal welfare, welfare, open rescue is a direct action of rescue practiced by animal rights activism, activists. Open rescue involves rescuing animals in pain and suffering, giving the rescued animals veterinary treatment and ...

s," in which liberationists enter businesses to remove animals without trying to hide their identities. Open rescues tend to be carried out by committed individuals willing to go to jail if prosecuted, but so far no farmer has been willing to press charges.

Targeting researchers

Activists have targeted individual researchers and have shown up at homes in the middle of the night, threatening their families and children. Nevertheless, the animal rights movement claims to be overwhelmingly peaceful, and that such instances of violence have been used in efforts to try to tarnish the entire movement.

Criminalization of direct action methods

The

U.S. Justice Department The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United States ...

labels underground groups the

and the

Earth Liberation Front The Earth Liberation Front (ELF), also known as "Elves" or "The Elves", is the collective name for autonomous individuals or covert cells who, according to the ELF Press Office, use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitatio ...

terrorist organizations A number of national governments and two international organizations have created lists of organizations that they designate as terrorist. The following list of designated terrorist groups lists groups designated as terrorist by current and fo ...

. A 13 November 2003 edition of CBS News' ''

60 Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who chose to set it apart from other news programs by using a unique styl ...

'' charged that "

eco-terrorists Eco-terrorism is an act of violence which is committed in support of environmental causes, against people or property. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines eco-terrorism as "...the use or threatened use of violence o ...

," a term used by the United States government to refer to the

and

, are considered by the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...

to be "the country's biggest domestic terrorist threat." John Lewis, a Deputy Assistant Director for

Counterterrorism Counterterrorism (also spelled counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, incorporates the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that Government, governments, law enforcement, business, and Intelligence agency, intellig ...

at the FBI, stated in a 60 Minutes interview that these groups "have caused over $100 million worth of damage nationwide", and that "there are more than 150 investigations of eco-terrorist crimes underway". "

Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) of 2006 is a United States federal law (; ) that prohibits any person from engaging in certain conduct "for the purpose of damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise." The statut ...

", the legislation which allows federal authorities to "help prevent, better investigate, and prosecute individuals who seek to halt biomedical research through acts of intimidation, harassment, and violence" was adopted in the USA in 2006. It has also been described as having 'a chilling effect' on free speech.

Inter-movement activity

Animal rights factions address injustices against a variety of groups, therein emphasizing a connection between discrimination against humans and discrimination against nonhuman animals. An intersectional orientation is seen online, on websites and social media, and also in offline activity. In Turkey, animal rights groups commonly join other social movements by aligning with online and offline campaigns. In Istanbul's 2013

Gezi Park protests A wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Turkey began on 28 May 2013, initially to contest the urban development plan for Istanbul's Taksim Gezi Park. The protests were sparked by outrage at the violent eviction of a sit-in at the park prote ...

, which began as an environmental movement against urban development efforts, various social movement groups participated. Among them were animal rights activists that saw the protests as an opportunity to raise concerns about speciesism. Animal rights activists' involvement in the protests changed the opinions of animal rights movement outsiders who had previously viewed vegan animal rights activists as elitist. This allowed for increased legitimacy and network expansion; the animal rights movement in Istanbul is composed of multi-movement actors from the feminist movement, LGBT+ movement, and antimilitarist movement, and such inter-movement interaction has led to increased coverage of veganism and animal rights by leftist news sites in Turkey.

Countermovement

Opposition to the animal rights movement comes primarily from corporate and state actors. Mass media, agribusiness, and

biomedicine Biomedicine (also referred to as Western medicine, mainstream medicine or conventional medicine)

industries often portray activists in a negative light, characterizing the movement as misanthropic, sensationalist, and dangerous to scientific endeavors and human well-being because of activists' high levels of expressed empathy for nonhuman animals. Mass media also frequently portray nonhuman animals as objects. Major pharmaceutical companies have taken legal measures to disallow protestors from targeting their companies. The abolitionist faction of the animal rights movement often faces counterframing by dominant reformist organizations of the movement that frame radical advocacy as idealistic and schismatic. These reform-oriented nonhuman rights organizations direct resources to countering abolitionist claims and blocking abolitionists' access to discursive spheres. Another example of counterframing from opposition movement actors is found in Switzerland's 1998 referendum cycle, in which antivivisectionists' claims that animal research should be abolished were contested with claims that mobilized the public more. Antivivisection claims, which framed animal research as facilitating the genetic engineering of foods in hopes of seizing on public fear of genetic engineering, were countered by scientists and animal researchers, who framed vivisection as medically necessary to ensure human well-being.