Rethinking the American Animal Rights Movement

175 Pages·2022·11.533 MB·English

by  Emily Patterson-Kane, Michael P. Allen, Jennifer Eadie

RETHINKING THE AMERICAN
ANIMAL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Along with Civil Rights and Women’s liberation, Animal Rights became
one of leading social moments of the twentieth century. This book critically
reviews all principal contributions to the American animal rights debate by
activists, campaigners, academics, and lawyers, while placing animal rights in
context with other related and competing movements.
Rethinking the American Animal Rights Movement examines the strategies
employed within the movement to advance its goals, which ranged from pub-
lic advocacy and legal reforms to civil disobedience, vigilantism, anarchism,
and even “terrorism”. It summarizes key theoretical and legal frameworks that
inspired those strategies, as well as the ideological motivations of the move-
ment. It highlights the irreconcilable tension between moral and legal rights
verses “humane treatment of animals” as prescribed by advocates of animal
welfarism. The book also looks back to the nineteenth century origins of
the movement, examining its appeal to a sentimentalist conception of rights
standing in marked contrast with twentieth century rights theory. After pro-
viding an extensive social history of the twentieth century movement, the
book subsequently offers a diagnosis of why it stalled at the turn of millennium
in its various efforts to advance the cause of nonhuman animals. This diagnosis
emphasizes the often-contradictory goals and strategies adopted by the move-
ment in its different phases and manifestations across three centuries.
The book is unique in presenting students, activists, and scholars with a
history and critical discussion of its accomplishments, failures, and ongoing
complexities faced by the American animal rights movement.
Emily Patterson-Kane is a New Zealand-born psychologist with a focus on
animal welfare and human-animal interactions. She has published research on
diverse topics including Animal abuse, assistance animals, and environmental
enrichment.
Michael Allen is a Professor of philosophy at East Tennessee State University.
He has published extensively on civil disobedience and crimes of dissent in a
variety of contexts from mass illegal human migrations to the illegal hunting of
wildlife. His research concerns the tensions between illegal political action and
nonviolence philosophy.
Jennifer Eadie lives and works on Kaurna Country in South Australia. She is a
teaching academic at the University of South Australia and a Doctoral Candidate
at Flinders University, South Australia. Her research is situated in the Environ-
mental Humanities and Critical Legal Studies.
RETHINKING THE
AMERICAN ANIMAL
RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Emily Patterson-Kane, Michael P. Allen, and
Jennifer Eadie
Cover Image: Matt Anderson Photography © Getty Images
First published 2022
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Taylor & Francis
The right of Emily Patterson-Kane, Michael P. Allen, and Jennifer Eadie
to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Patterson-Kane, Emily, author. | Allen, Michael Patrick, author. |
Eadie, Jennifer, author.
Title: Rethinking the American animal rights movement / Emily
Patterson-Kane, Michael P. Allen, and Jennifer Eadie.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Series: American social
and political movements of the 20th century | Includes bibliographical
references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021046949 (print) | LCCN
2021046950 (ebook) |
Subjects: LCSH: Animal rights movement--United States--History. |
Animal rights--United States. | Animal welfare--United States.
Classification: LCC HV4764 .P38 2022 (print) | LCC HV4764 (ebook) |
DDC 179/.30973--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021046949
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021046950
ISBN: 978-1-138-91509-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-91510-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-69042-1 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781315690421
Typeset in Bembo
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
CONTENTS
Series Editor’s Introduction ix
Introduction 1
1 The Animal Rights Debate 5
The Subject of Rights 5
Equal Consideration of Interests: Peter Singer 7
Move from Equal Consideration to a Right to Life: Tom Regan 9
Feminist and Animal Rights 11
Rights in Practice 12
The Case Against Animal Rights 14
Summary 16
2 Strategies 18
Introduction 18
Infiltration 19
Protest 22
The March for Animals 24
Academia 26
Humane Education 27
Media and Entertainment 28
Celebrities 30
Bob Barker 31
Shock Tactics 32
vi Contents
Legislative Reforms 34
Boycotts and Alternatives 35
Meatless Meat 36
Religion 39
The Role of Violence/Nonviolence in Animal Rights Strategies 41
Nonviolence and “Forcing the Choices” of Animal Abusers 41
Vigilantism and “Enforcing New Norms” of Interspecies
Community 43
Conclusion 45
3 Origins of the Movement: Empathy and Emancipation
from Cruelty (pre-1900) 48
The Middle Passage of Turtles as Silent or Dumb Slaves 51
A Horse Autobiography, Evangelizing Suffering, and Reactionary
Trap Shooters 54
Conclusion 57
4 Early Twentieth Century (1900–1970) 60
An Overall Summary of the 1900–2000 Period 60
Prehistory and Inactivity 1900–1955 62
The Leadership of Socially Elite Women 62
Caroline Earle White 63
Inactivity, 1922–1955 67
Competing Issues in Public Health and Social Justice 67
Children’s Literature and Humane Education 68
Animal Farm 70
Animals in the Entertainment Industry 71
Anna C. Briggs 73
Opposition to Trapping 74
Recognition of Animal Minds 76
Conservative Opposition to Recognizing Animal Continuity with
Humans 78
Transition, 1955–1970 78
Incubation for the Movement 78
Growing Tension between Activism and Science 78
Animal Welfare Institute 79
Challenging the Agriculture Industry 80
Growing Public Interest in Wildlife and the Environment 81
Increasing Public Opposition to Animal Research 82
Helen Jones 83
Contents vii
5 Twentieth Century History (1970–2000) 86
New Social Movements 86
1970–1980: Emergence 88
Academia, Masculinism, and the Influence of Singer’s Animal
Liberation 88
The Difficulty of Declarations 90
Toxicity Testing on Animals, and the Alternatives 93
The Issue of Companion Animals 94
Radicalized Environmentalism 96
Professionalization of the Movement 97
Bureaucratization and the Three Rs 99
Eleanor Seiling 100
Henry Spira 100
Peak Phase, 1981–2000 102
The Peak 102
Protests and Days of Abstinence 104
“No Kill” Sheltering 104
Animal Welfare Science 106
Feminism and the Duty of Care 107
Intersectionality and the Minority Deficit 108
Growing Movement Factionalism 109
Repression of Animal Rights Extremism as Terrorism 110
Post Peak Movement 112
Conclusion 113
6 Twentieth Century Junctions and Roadblocks 118
Anarchism 120
Fascism 121
Marxism 123
Conservationism 124
Environmentalism 125
Multiculturalism 127
Intersectionalism 129
Conclusion 131
7 Legacy: Overcoming Confusion and Fatigue,
Finding New Directions (2000-) 133
Conflicting Theories 134
Theory Fatigue 136
Animals and National Citizenship 137
viii Contents
The Animal Standpoint and Total Liberation 139
Animal Resistors 141
Conclusion 143
Discussion: A Movement Constantly Rethinking Itself 147
Rethinking at the Origins of the Movement 147
Rethinking Rights as Welfare 147
Rethinking Rights as Distinct from Welfare 148
Rethinking Animal Rights as Political and as Historical 148
Rethinking Animals as Co-Participants in the Movement 149
Rethinking the “Adversaries” of the Movement 149
Perplexities Concerning the Movement’s Future 149
References 151
Index 163
SERIES EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the American Social and Political Movements of the 20th Century series
at Routledge. This collection of works by top historians from around the nation
and world introduces students to the myriad movements that came together
in the United States during the twentieth century to expand democracy, to
reshape the political economy, and to increase social justice.
Each book in this series explores a particular movement’s origins, its central
goals, its leading as well as grassroots figures, its actions as well as ideas, and its
most important accomplishments as well as serious missteps.
With this series of concise yet synthetic overviews and reassessments, stu-
dents not only will gain a richer understanding of the many human rights and
civil liberties that they take for granted today, but they will also newly appre-
ciate how recent, how deeply contested, and thus how inherently fragile, are
these same elements of American citizenship.
Heather Ann Thompson
University of Michigan