"Speciesism: The Movie" -- Looks Like a MUST SEE for True Animal Lovers

[yorkietalkjilly]

I'm just wondering what rights animals should be legally given? The right to die with dignity when they are seriously ill or injured and not to go through painful, long courses of treatments or serial surgeries to keep them alive when euthanasia would be kinder, for a court or judge to decide when they breathe their last, the right not to be used for medical experimentation, even for drugs that could potentially benefit desperately ill or injured humans, the right not to be kept in cages/crates/cages - even birds and fish, the right to have his owner gain far more than his dollar worth when he's hurt or killed by another animals or human, the right for taxpayers to cover his legal costs to defend him in court should he injured or kill a person or another animal if his owners are poor, his right to not be dressed up as a human child or icon or cartoon/movie character of some sort, a female animal's right not to be bred to some male she's never met or doesn't even like, the right not to have her babies sold for money, the right not to have his species eaten for food, the hide, teeth, bones or fur used for human accessories or goods and put Gucci and Jimmy Choo out of business? Where do they draw the line?

I worry that it seems to me, and I hope I'm wrong, that many of the animal-rights proponents who want animals not to suffer in any way in experimental labs seem pretty cynical about the human race and one can count on them to expound on the horrors mankind has perpetrated over the centuries as part of their arguments for humanity not deserving any type of aid from animals and don't worry about human pain and suffering. Alternatively, they seem fairly willing to expect those of us who don't want ourselves or our own family members experimented with during times when health or lives are hanging in the balance, to just sit back and allow that point of view to carry the day and thereby expose ourselves and our loved ones to drugs and treatments that haven't ever been adequately tested before some desperate human has to try it out.

That will leave medical testing basically to some poor convict(and bear in mind, not all of them are hard-bitten desperado's or even guilty) or a very poor man or out-of-work single mother desperate to make some money to feed the family or a few volunteers to stepping up and opening themselves up to taking a pill or an injection that could seriously sicken, severely damage or kill him or her, as it's never ever been tried on any living thing before - and the animal-rights proponents just don't seem to really care that much about the human race anymore. The level of basic disregard for humanity and humans' rights to ever safer medical treatment seem to pale in their minds next to those of the animal kingdom's rights - at least it seems that way to me at times.

Most humans love animals for just what they are, think they are abused by too many people in too many ways, but also see how other humans work constantly to make their lives better, too. Most humans hate that cows and chickens and other animals live to be killed for our families to be able to enjoy a fine meal or wear leather shoes, too. But, still, most humans the world over see animals in the role they have always had in the world and will never see them as basically the same with only some differences from humans or they would barf every time they drove by a Burger King, visited a grocery store with a meat market or saw a friend in a chick leather jacket.

And if an animal-rights proponent ever talks to any desperately worried parent or pediatric oncologist in a children's cancer hospital about stopping animal experimentation and leaving all the early testing of new new drugs, treatments and surgical techniques on children, they might just get cursed out and escorted out of the facility.

[gemy]

SPECIESISM AND THE IDEA OF EQUALITY

By Bonnie Steinbock

From Philosophy, vol. 53, no. 204 (April 1978): 247-256.

Most of us believe that we are entitled to treat members of other species in ways which would be considered wrong if inflicted on members of our own species. We kill them for food, keep them confined, use them in painful experiments. The moral philosopher has to ask what relevant difference justifies this difference in treatment. A look at this question will lead us to re-examine the distinctions which we have assumed make a moral difference.
It has been suggested by Peter Singer1 that our current attitudes are "speciesist," a word intended to make one think of "racist" or "sexist." The idea is that membership in a species is in itself not relevant to moral treatment, and that much of our behavior and attitudes towards nonhuman animals is based simply on this irrelevant fact.
There is, however, an important difference between racism or sexism and "speciesism." We do not subject animals to different moral treatment simply because they have fur and feathers, but because they are in fact different from human beings in ways that could be morally relevant. It is false that women are incapable of being benefited by education, and therefore that claim cannot serve to justify preventing them from attending school. But this is not false of cows and dogs, even chimpanzees. Intelligence is thought to be a morally relevant capacity because of its relation to the capacity for moral responsibility.
What is Singer's response? He agrees that nonhuman animals lack certain capacities that human animals possess, and that this may justify different treatment. But it does not justify giving less consideration to their needs and interests. According to Singer, the moral mistake which the racist or sexist makes is not essentially the factual error of thinking that blacks or women are inferior to white men. For even if there were no factual error, even if it were true that blacks and women are less intelligent and responsible than whites and men, this would not justify giving less consideration to their needs and interests. It is important to note that the term "speciesism" is in one way like, and in another way unlike, the terms "racism" and "sexism." What the term "speciesism" has in common with these terms is the reference to focusing on a characteristic which is, in itself, irrelevant to moral treatment. And it is worth reminding us of this. But Singer's real aim is to bring us to a new understanding of the idea of equality. The question is, on what do claims to equality rest? The demand for human equality is a demand that the interests of all human beings be considered equally, unless there is a moral justification for not doing so. But why should the interests of all human beings be considered equally? In order to answer this question, we have to give some sense to the phrase, "All men (human beings) are created equal." Human beings are manifestly not equal, differing greatly in intelligence, virtue and capacities. In virtue of what can the claim to equality be made?
It is Singer's contention that claims to equality do not rest on factual equality. Not only do human beings differ in their capacities, but it might even turn out that intelligence, the capacity for virtue, etc., are not distributed evenly among the races and sexes:

The appropriate response to those who claim to have found evidence of genetically based differences in ability between the races or sexes is not to stick to the belief that the genetic explanation must be wrong, whatever evidence to the contrary may turn up; instead we should make it quite clear that the claim to equality does not depend on intelligence, moral capacity, physical strength, or similar matters of fact. Equality is a moral ideal, not a simple assertion of fact. There is no logically compelling reason for assuming that a factual difference in ability between two people justifies any difference in the amount of consideration we give to satisfying their needs and interests. The principle of equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat humans.2

Insofar as the subject is human equality, Singer's view is supported by other philosophers. Bernard Williams, for example, is concerned to show that demands for equality cannot rest on factual equality among people, for no such equality exists.3 The only respect in which all men are equal, according to Williams, is that they are all equally men. This seems to be a platitude, but Williams denies that it is trivial. Membership in the species Homo sapiens in itself has no special moral significance, but rather the fact that all men are human serves as a reminder that being human involves the possession of characteristics that are morally relevant. But on what characteristics does Williams focus? Aside from the desire for self-respect (which I will discuss later), Williams is not concerned with uniquely human capacities. Rather, he focuses on the capacity to feel pain and the capacity to feel affection. It is in virtue of these capacities, it seems, that he idea of equality is to be justified.
Apparently Richard Wasserstrom has the same idea as he sets out the racist's "logical and moral mistakes" in "Rights, Human Rights and Racial Discrimination."4 The racist fails to acknowledge that the black person is as capable of suffering as the white person. According to Wasserstrom, the reason why a person is said to have a right not to be made to suffer acute physical pain is that we all do in fact value freed Tom such pain. Therefore, if anyone has a right to be free from suffering acute physical pain everyone has this right, for there is no possible basis of discrimination. Wasserstrom says, "For, if all persons do have equal capacities of these sorts and if the existence of these capacities is the reason for ascribing these rights to anyone, then all persons ought to haste the right to claim equality of treatment in respect to the possession and exercise of these rights."5 The basis of equality, for Wasserstrom as for Williams, lies not in some uniquely human capacity, but rather in the fact that all human beings are alike in their capacity to suffer. Writers on equality have focused on this capacity, I think, because it functions as some sort of lowest common denominator, so that whatever the other capacities of a human being, he is entitled to equal consideration because, like everyone else, he is capable of suffering.
If the capacity to suffer is the reason for ascribing a right to freedom from acute pain, or a right to well being, then it certainly looks as though these rights must be extended to animals as well. This is the conclusion Singer arrives at. The demand for human equality rests on the equal capacity of all human beings to suffer and to enjoy well being. But if this s the basis of the demand for equality, then this demand must include all beings which have an equal capacity to suffer and enjoy well being. That is why Sing r places at the basis of the demand for equality, n t intelligence or reason, but sentience. And equality will mean, not equality of treatment, but "equal consideration of interests." The equal consideration f interests will often mean quite different treatment, depending on the nature of the entity being considered. (It would be as absurd to talk of a dog's right t vote, Singer says, as to talk of a man's right to have a abortion.)
It might be thought that the issue of equality depends on a discussion of rights. According to this line of thought, animals do not merit equal consideration of interests because, unlike human beings they do not, or cannot, have rights. But I am not going to discuss rights, important as the issue is. The fact that an entity does not have rights does not necessarily imply that its interests are going to count for less than the interests of entities which are right-bearers. According to the view of rights held by H. L. A. Hart and S. 1. Benn, infants do not have rights, nor do the mentally defective, nor do the insane, in so far as they all lack certain minimal conceptual capabilities for having rights.6 Yet it certainly does not seem that either Hart or Benn would agree that therefore their interests are to be counted for less, or that it is morally permissible to treat them in ways in which it would not be permissible to treat right-bearers. It seems to mean only that we must give different sorts of reasons for our obligations to take into consideration the interests of those who do not have rights





THis article is very long but can found in full at this link:L

http://www2.webster.edu/~corbetre/ph...bock-text.html

[lisaly]

I strongly believe that every person who has posted on this thread is an animal lover. I don't think that viewing animals differently makes one person more of an animal lover than another. It never crossed my mind that you were implying that, Ann.

I have not seen the movie, so I can't objectively comment on it. I've never entertained the thought that humans are superior to animals, and I've never thought that people with higher intelligence are "better" than people who are less intelligent. Actually I believe in multiple intelligences and each of us has different strengths. I see amazing things each day in the high school I teach in by ALL kinds of students. I'm appalled by those that look down on others due to their handicaps or mental capacity. Are my feelings affected by the fact that I work with and adore my special needs students? Of course they are, just as I think that Gail and Judy are by the things that are done to honest breeders who are doing so because of their love for dogs. No one could ever convince me that they are doing so to profit from breeding. I was horrified to hear of what happened to YT member MagicGenie in the name of animal welfare, and I hope we can find a way to protect breeders who pour their hearts and souls into producing healthy, well adjusted puppies.

I abhor puppy mills, and I'm a strong believer in animal welfare. We need to use our intelligence to find a way to stop the inhumane treatment of animals and to boycott companies who support it.

I am an animal lover, but I am partially drawn to dogs. I believe in the goodness of people, but I love the pureness in which dogs feel love. Years ago I read a book about the emotional side of dogs. I love this particular quote:

“Dogs are without the ambivalence with which humans seem cursed. It is as if once a dog loves you, he loves you always, no matter what you do, no matter what happens, no matter how much time goes by. Dogs have a prodigious memory for people they have known. Perhaps this is because they associate people with the love they felt for them, and they derive pleasure from remembering this love.”
—Jeffrey Moussaieff Mason: Dogs Never Lie About Love (Recognizing the Emotions of Dogs)

Temple Grandin wrote about the emotions of dogs in the link below. I found it very interesting.
Fairfield Beach Access

[Yorkiemom1]

Originally Posted by Wylie's Mom

Judy, I can't even read beyond this sentence bc 1) it's just sounding like more paranoid propaganda rather than just a calm discussion and 2) I can't read things when you don't use paragraphs...can you please please please use paragraphs to divide up what your points are, so that people's brains can read and process it? I don't mean that as any sort of insult, it's just impossible to read this humongous paragraph...and I'd like to be able to read it.

As far as some real "agenda" being anti-breeding, that just sounds crazy. No one here is attacking breeders, at all. Nor is that what this movie is "ALL about", my goodness! Where are you getting this stuff from this movie? For the record, I'm not anti-breeding and never have been and never will be. I am against the way breeding is currently rampant, most often cruel and tortuous, and completely unregulated in our country - it's BARBARIC for God's sake. It truly is.

As I said, I couldn't read your whole paragraph - but it seems you do believe you have "rights" to breed animals. We differ a great deal there, I guess I don't believe anyone has "rights" over these poor animals, such as in breeding. Rather, I think it should be a privilege for those who are able to treat these poor animals humanely....and that is NOT happening 90% of the time. If you can't even agree to that (or somewhere in the ballpark), then I can't see how you ever could proclaim to be part of a solution....someday, somehow.

I am sorry I do not construct my post in accordance with what makes it easier for you to read.

No one here is actively at this moment, attacking breeding or breeders, but I have spent too much time fighting PETA, HSUS, USDA, etc along with breeder clubs and responsible breeders, who are clearly are fighting breeding and breeders every chance they can. Opps...let me stop with facts, dont want to sound like a paranoid nut.

I am sorry my convictions to animal welfare over animal rights sound like "paranoid propaganda" to you....Sorry I believe that human beings are superior to animals.

Dont worry about reading my other post...it has nothing to offer you....it is not in agreement with anything you believe, therefore it is insignificant for you.

You have your well entrenched beliefs regarding animal rights versus animal welfare, and you will not be broadening your interpretation of anything that pertains to another view, just as I wont be swayed to agree with activities that do not follow what I believe to be true.

You are actually every much as closed minded to what I believe, as I am towards what you believe. That apparently makes you a hero to animal causes, and makes me "paranoid", according to you.

This "paranoid" poster never referred to anyone elses position on this subject, even if it is not in agreement with mine, with any insults.

I only asked people to become educated about "speciesism". I never told anyone not to watch this movie. I asked them to read informative books that explane the movement, which was not made evident by this documentary. I called this a benign little movie from the start.

We both have our own moral compasses. We can end this conversation in agreement with that. And we can both agree YOU are not the "paranoid" person that is spewing propaganda about "speciesism" here, according to you, that will be ME. Oh well..............

[gemy]

Back to the Movie Speciesism. There are logical trains of thought that will flow from the "ideas" brought forward in this movie.

First in its own advertising literature it describes a movie that is in support of the animal "rights" agenda. In an earlier posting I posted what was available with quick search on the web. THeir agenda is clearly outlined with little obfuscations or seemingly obtuse and vague language.

'the movie made no bones about not doing anything to show cogent counter prevailing arguments. It spent quite a bit of time at the end of the movie promoting veganism etc.

The horrows of these mass barns and virtual pits of muck that food animals in big Agro must live in, would be appalling to any-one. So outlaw those okay? Where is the meat supply going to come from? Are there truly enough small farms that pasture raise their animals to supply the demand for North American omnivores? But if you accept that any animal has a right to feel no pain through out their lifetime then one can't slaughter animals for food. By default one must be a vegetarian. Of course you can't breed animals either because after all whelping is painfull and risky, and they now have a legal right under a new law that their life is to be painfree.

I am very concerned for animal welfare, but I am far from convinced animals need rights under the law. And if so, just exactly what those rights should be.

Quite frankly I personally don't want to live in a world that I can't share with my buds. ANd if breeding for companion dogs/cats is outlawed we shall have no best buds.

Superior is a term that seems to be a "bad" word. We can't call ourselves superior without somehow attaching wrong to the word. And quite frankly humans are a species that are different to dogs or cats or elephants. We for the most part do actually have a higher intelligence then the aforementioned. What is so wrong about stating the obvious. My dog how-ever can run faster leap higherand love deeper than I probably will ever be able to do. So my dog is superior to me in those attributes.

And I will not lie to myself or you, but as much as I love my dog(s), when faced with a terrible choice, I could only rescue one either my sister or my dog from a fire, my sister will be the one I choose. Both rely on me fairly equally. And before you wonder my sister is brain damaged and quite frankly needs my help and support to move through her life. She is also of the group that was put on video to make a trite point in this documentary.

My beliefs are pretty simple, those that you can help you help, those that are weaker or infirm through physical or mental shortfalls, or more politicallyorrect speech, differently abled, require my protection. It is my duty and my responsibility.

In terms of meat eating the growth rampant of the world population might force us to make major changes in how and what we eat. Until then I put my money where my mouth is and source my meat from local (near local) free range farmers, and my fruits n veges from organic farmers.

I will support the right of farmers to breed and raise and butcher humanely their livestock. I will support local farmers, to insist that they need to be protected from Big Agro, and this GMO nonsense.

So I try not to support Big Agro, and like Kristin I have never had veal since gosh 30 odd years ago.

I happen to think this documentary was neither well researched and made no concerted effort to show both sides of the question. Interviewees on many occasions looked at the minimum surprised by the question asked, or in certain circumstances were ambushed on their own property. I think the tactics that were employed at times to make a trivial point were uncalled for.

[ladyjane]

made an error in posting...will try again

[ladyjane]

Originally Posted by Maximo

All of the comments I read on another site were positive and said the movie is thought-provoking and does not draw any conclusions or impose any ideology.

Originally Posted by gemy

I happen to think this documentary was neither well researched and made no concerted effort to show both sides of the question. Interviewees on many occasions looked at the minimum surprised by the question asked, or in certain circumstances were ambushed on their own property. I think the tactics that were employed at times to make a trivial point were uncalled for.

Are you both talking about the same movie? I seriously need to go view it.

[gemy]

Originally Posted by gemy

SPECIESISM AND THE IDEA OF EQUALITY

By Bonnie Steinbock

From Philosophy, vol. 53, no. 204 (April 1978): 247-256.

Most of us believe that we are entitled to treat members of other species in ways which would be considered wrong if inflicted on members of our own species. We kill them for food, keep them confined, use them in painful experiments. The moral philosopher has to ask what relevant difference justifies this difference in treatment. A look at this question will lead us to re-examine the distinctions which we have assumed make a moral difference.
It has been suggested by Peter Singer1 that our current attitudes are "speciesist," a word intended to make one think of "racist" or "sexist." The idea is that membership in a species is in itself not relevant to moral treatment, and that much of our behavior and attitudes towards nonhuman animals is based simply on this irrelevant fact.
There is, however, an important difference between racism or sexism and "speciesism." We do not subject animals to different moral treatment simply because they have fur and feathers, but because they are in fact different from human beings in ways that could be morally relevant. It is false that women are incapable of being benefited by education, and therefore that claim cannot serve to justify preventing them from attending school. But this is not false of cows and dogs, even chimpanzees. Intelligence is thought to be a morally relevant capacity because of its relation to the capacity for moral responsibility.
What is Singer's response? He agrees that nonhuman animals lack certain capacities that human animals possess, and that this may justify different treatment. But it does not justify giving less consideration to their needs and interests. According to Singer, the moral mistake which the racist or sexist makes is not essentially the factual error of thinking that blacks or women are inferior to white men. For even if there were no factual error, even if it were true that blacks and women are less intelligent and responsible than whites and men, this would not justify giving less consideration to their needs and interests. It is important to note that the term "speciesism" is in one way like, and in another way unlike, the terms "racism" and "sexism." What the term "speciesism" has in common with these terms is the reference to focusing on a characteristic which is, in itself, irrelevant to moral treatment. And it is worth reminding us of this. But Singer's real aim is to bring us to a new understanding of the idea of equality. The question is, on what do claims to equality rest? The demand for human equality is a demand that the interests of all human beings be considered equally, unless there is a moral justification for not doing so. But why should the interests of all human beings be considered equally? In order to answer this question, we have to give some sense to the phrase, "All men (human beings) are created equal." Human beings are manifestly not equal, differing greatly in intelligence, virtue and capacities. In virtue of what can the claim to equality be made?
It is Singer's contention that claims to equality do not rest on factual equality. Not only do human beings differ in their capacities, but it might even turn out that intelligence, the capacity for virtue, etc., are not distributed evenly among the races and sexes:

The appropriate response to those who claim to have found evidence of genetically based differences in ability between the races or sexes is not to stick to the belief that the genetic explanation must be wrong, whatever evidence to the contrary may turn up; instead we should make it quite clear that the claim to equality does not depend on intelligence, moral capacity, physical strength, or similar matters of fact. Equality is a moral ideal, not a simple assertion of fact. There is no logically compelling reason for assuming that a factual difference in ability between two people justifies any difference in the amount of consideration we give to satisfying their needs and interests. The principle of equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat humans.2

Insofar as the subject is human equality, Singer's view is supported by other philosophers. Bernard Williams, for example, is concerned to show that demands for equality cannot rest on factual equality among people, for no such equality exists.3 The only respect in which all men are equal, according to Williams, is that they are all equally men. This seems to be a platitude, but Williams denies that it is trivial. Membership in the species Homo sapiens in itself has no special moral significance, but rather the fact that all men are human serves as a reminder that being human involves the possession of characteristics that are morally relevant. But on what characteristics does Williams focus? Aside from the desire for self-respect (which I will discuss later), Williams is not concerned with uniquely human capacities. Rather, he focuses on the capacity to feel pain and the capacity to feel affection. It is in virtue of these capacities, it seems, that he idea of equality is to be justified.
Apparently Richard Wasserstrom has the same idea as he sets out the racist's "logical and moral mistakes" in "Rights, Human Rights and Racial Discrimination."4 The racist fails to acknowledge that the black person is as capable of suffering as the white person. According to Wasserstrom, the reason why a person is said to have a right not to be made to suffer acute physical pain is that we all do in fact value freed Tom such pain. Therefore, if anyone has a right to be free from suffering acute physical pain everyone has this right, for there is no possible basis of discrimination. Wasserstrom says, "For, if all persons do have equal capacities of these sorts and if the existence of these capacities is the reason for ascribing these rights to anyone, then all persons ought to haste the right to claim equality of treatment in respect to the possession and exercise of these rights."5 The basis of equality, for Wasserstrom as for Williams, lies not in some uniquely human capacity, but rather in the fact that all human beings are alike in their capacity to suffer. Writers on equality have focused on this capacity, I think, because it functions as some sort of lowest common denominator, so that whatever the other capacities of a human being, he is entitled to equal consideration because, like everyone else, he is capable of suffering.
If the capacity to suffer is the reason for ascribing a right to freedom from acute pain, or a right to well being, then it certainly looks as though these rights must be extended to animals as well. This is the conclusion Singer arrives at. The demand for human equality rests on the equal capacity of all human beings to suffer and to enjoy well being. But if this s the basis of the demand for equality, then this demand must include all beings which have an equal capacity to suffer and enjoy well being. That is why Sing r places at the basis of the demand for equality, n t intelligence or reason, but sentience. And equality will mean, not equality of treatment, but "equal consideration of interests." The equal consideration f interests will often mean quite different treatment, depending on the nature of the entity being considered. (It would be as absurd to talk of a dog's right t vote, Singer says, as to talk of a man's right to have a abortion.)
It might be thought that the issue of equality depends on a discussion of rights. According to this line of thought, animals do not merit equal consideration of interests because, unlike human beings they do not, or cannot, have rights. But I am not going to discuss rights, important as the issue is. The fact that an entity does not have rights does not necessarily imply that its interests are going to count for less than the interests of entities which are right-bearers. According to the view of rights held by H. L. A. Hart and S. 1. Benn, infants do not have rights, nor do the mentally defective, nor do the insane, in so far as they all lack certain minimal conceptual capabilities for having rights.6 Yet it certainly does not seem that either Hart or Benn would agree that therefore their interests are to be counted for less, or that it is morally permissible to treat them in ways in which it would not be permissible to treat right-bearers. It seems to mean only that we must give different sorts of reasons for our obligations to take into consideration the interests of those who do not have rights





THis article is very long but can found in full at this link:L

Bonnie Steinbock -- Speciesism and the Idea of Equality

If you read through the 30,000 word article, there was cogent thought and examination of many factors, and some positioning statements.

This is the type person I would have liked to see be interviewed on this promodocumentary.

[gemy]

[QUOTE=yorkietalkjilly;4470650]I'm just wondering what rights animals should be legally given? The right to die with dignity when they are seriously ill or injured and not to go through painful, long courses of treatments or serial surgeries to keep them alive when euthanasia would be kinder, for a court or judge to decide when they breathe their last, the right not to be used for medical experimentation, even for drugs that could potentially benefit desperately ill or injured humans, the right not to be kept in cages/crates/cages - even birds and fish, the right to have his owner gain far more than his dollar worth when he's hurt or killed by another animals or human, the right for taxpayers to cover his legal costs to defend him in court should he injured or kill a person or another animal if his owners are poor, his right to not be dressed up as a human child or icon or cartoon/movie character of some sort, a female animal's right not to be bred to some male she's never met or doesn't even like, the right not to have her babies sold for money, the right not to have his species eaten for food, the hide, teeth, bones or fur used for human accessories or goods and put Gucci and Jimmy Choo out of business? Where do they draw the line?

I worry that it seems to me, and I hope I'm wrong, that many of the animal-rights proponents who want animals not to suffer in any way in experimental labs seem pretty cynical about the human race and one can count on them to expound on the horrors mankind has perpetrated over the centuries as part of their arguments for humanity not deserving any type of aid from animals and don't worry about human pain and suffering. Alternatively, they seem fairly willing to expect those of us who don't want ourselves or our own family members experimented with during times when health or lives are hanging in the balance, to just sit back and allow that point of view to carry the day and thereby expose ourselves and our loved ones to drugs and treatments that haven't ever been adequately tested before some desperate human has to try it out.

That will leave medical testing basically to some poor convict(and bear in mind, not all of them are hard-bitten desperado's or even guilty) or a very poor man or out-of-work single mother desperate to make some money to feed the family or a few volunteers to stepping up and opening themselves up to taking a pill or an injection that could seriously sicken, severely damage or kill him or her, as it's never ever been tried on any living thing before - and the animal-rights proponents just don't seem to really care that much about the human race anymore. The level of basic disregard for humanity and humans' rights to ever safer medical treatment seem to pale in their minds next to those of the animal kingdom's rights - at least it seems that way to me at times.

Most humans love animals for just what they are, think they are abused by too many people in too many ways, but also see how other humans work constantly to make their lives better, too. Most humans hate that cows and chickens and other animals live to be killed for our families to be able to enjoy a fine meal or wear leather shoes, too. But, still, most humans the world over see animals in the role they have always had in the world and will never see them as basically the same with only some differences from humans or they would barf every time they drove by a Burger King, visited a grocery store with a meat market or saw a friend in a chick leather jacket.

And if an animal-rights proponent ever talks to any desperately worried parent or pediatric oncologist in a children's cancer hospital about stopping animal experimentation and leaving all the early testing of new new drugs, treatments and surgical techniques on children, they might just get cursed out and escorted out of the facility.[/QUOTE]

I agree with many of your concerns. But I would like to discuss this experimentation on animals for research. Not being a scientist, but trying to understand the ever burgeoning field of research, there may be options of testing that does not require |whole animal" testing. I am talking about petri dishes, and stem cells, and so on.

If a way can be found to eliminate whole animal being tested, perhaps that way should be found.

And I did post a link here somewhere that talked about how the genetic research on dogs and cancers for example, may provide insightfull in-roads into human cancer research.

Obviously I don't have the knowledge to ideate what those scientific methods might be, but for sure others do have.

[ladyjane]

If I hear one more time about how we are not going to have any companion animals left, I am going to scream. This is the same stuff over and over. The anti spay/neuter people spout that, and every time there is any legislation put forward about protecting animals, we hear the same thing. Now, talking about this movie starts the same rhetoric. I really wish that fear mongering would stop, but I doubt it will. Seems to me there is something much deeper with all of it.

[Yorkiemom1]

Originally Posted by gemy

The Animal Rights Agenda, 25 Years Later | Psychology Today

I found this article an interesting read:

I recommend that you take a look at The "Animal Rights Agenda" 25 Years Later, published today on the Animal People website. The editorial takes us back to 1987, when a group of animal activists put together a document outlining the twelve central issues of concern to those fighting for animal rights. The essay then offers an updated agenda, building upon the original 12 statements. We are given a sense of where progress has been made, and where things have gotten worse. Here, in abbreviated form, are the twelve original statements

#1-We are firmly committed to the eventual abolition by law of animal research, and call for an immediate prohibition of painful experiments and tests. .
#2-The use of animals for cosmetics and household product testing, tobacco and alcohol testing, psychological testing, classroom demonstrations and dissection, and in weapons development or other warfare programs must be outlawed immediately.
#3-We encourage vegetarianism for ethical, ecological, and health reasons.
#4-Steps should be taken to begin phasing out intensive confinement systems of livestock production, also called factory farming, which causes severe physical and psychological suffering for the animals kept in overcrowded and unnatural conditions.
#5-The use of herbicides, pesticides, and other toxic agricultural chemicals should be phased out.
#6-Responsibility for enforcement of animal welfare legislation must be transferred from the Department of Agriculture to an agency created for the purpose of protecting animals and the environment.
#7-Commercial trapping and fur ranching should be eliminated.
#8-Hunting, trapping, and fishing for sport should be prohibited.
#9-Internationally, steps should be taken by the U.S. government to prevent further destruction of rain forests.
#10-We strongly discourage any further breeding of companion animals, including pedigreed or purebred dogs and cats.
#11-We call for an end to the use of animals in entertainment and sports such as dog racing, dog and cock fighting, fox hunting, hare coursing, rodeos, circuses, and other spectacles and a critical reappraisal of the use of animals in quasi-educational institutions such as zoos and aquariums.
#12-Advances in biotechnology are posing a threat to the integrity of species, which may ultimately reduce all living
which may ultimately reduce all living beings to the level of patentable commodities. Genetic manipulation of species to produce transgenic animals must be prohibited.
A few of issues, in particular, are given extended (and very interesting) discussion. For example, the original document called for an immediate end to all animal research. The new agenda concedes that research will likely not stop, and instead focuses on specific actions that could improve the welfare of laboratory animals, such as the development of and compulsory adherence to a pain classification scale; prohibition of any experiment classified as severely painful, where pain cannot be relieved; and prohibition of any procedures that would be defined as torture by international conventions.
The new document reaffirms the commitment to vegetarianism, but with increased urgency. There is an interesting discussion of live-stock gift charities and "locovorism" (a culinary trend which fetishizes back-yard butchering).

THat seems pretty clear to me the above statements and in particular the one with respect to breeding.

Thank you for posting this...very informative and an accurate outline of the Animal Rights Agenda. Maybe I am not as "paranoid" as some would like for others to believe.

I would have thought it was much longer than 25 years I have been fighting some of these outrageous "demands" by these people as outlined in their own agenda, their mission statement. I will continue to fight for animal welfare, enforcement of laws addressing animal abuse, animal cruelty, and alternative options for research whenever possible.

[gemy]

Originally Posted by ladyjane

If I hear one more time about how we are not going to have any companion animals left, I am going to scream. This is the same stuff over and over. The anti spay/neuter people spout that, and every time there is any legislation put forward about protecting animals, we hear the same thing. Now, talking about this movie starts the same rhetoric. I really wish that fear mongering would stop, but I doubt it will. Seems to me there is something much deeper with all of it.

I posted the Animal Rights Agenda in an earlier post. Here yet again is their stated goal, vs a vs breeding described in more detail.

Dogs & cats


Item #10 of “Politics of Animal Liberation,” strongly discouraging any further breeding of companion animals, including pedigreed or purebred dogs and cats, had become the policy of most major humane organizations by 1992, when ANIMAL PEOPLE debuted.
As the national pet sterilization rate soared over 70%, however, and numbers of dogs and cats killed in U.S. animal shelters plunged from 17.8 million in 1985 to 3.4 million in 2010, some humane societies have reforged alliances with fancy-breeders, in support of breed-specific rescuing and in opposition to puppy mills.
Such alliances can be problematic. As many recent puppy mill raids have demonstrated, a clear legal distinction between a fancy-breeder and a backyard breeder is often difficult to make. Under economic or other personal stresses, many onetime fancy-breeding operations degenerate into puppy mills.
This is not to point fingers at breeders alone. Under similar circumstances erstwhile rescuers often become animal hoarders. Breeders and failed rescuers have surrendered comparable numbers of neglected animals to law enforcement in recent years–but while failed rescuers frequently allow unwanted breeding to occur, by not getting all of the animals in their custody sterilized, only breeders are intentionally contributing more animals to the surplus.
Contrary to overly optimistic claims by advocates of no-kill sheltering, the U.S. still has a dog-and-cat overpopulation problem, albeit not the same problem of unwanted accidental litters born to household pets and “too many pets but not enough homes” that prevailed in 1987.
Currently, more than two-thirds of all the dogs arriving at U.S. shelters are either purebreds or pit bulls, who by themselves are about 30% of the incoming. As pit bulls do not breed true to type unless line-bred, these are deliberately manufactured dogs. Intentionally bred dogs who are surrendered to shelters have usually had at least three homes: their birth home, the home they were purchased to occupy, and a pass-along home before final abandonment, usually between the ages of one and two.
Other intentionally bred dogs now enjoy excellent chances of adoption, thanks in part to the work of breed-specific rescue networks. But as the October 2011 ANIMAL PEOPLE editorial “More adoptions will not end shelter killing of pit bulls” explained in depth and detail, the number of safe and stable homes for pit bulls in the U.S. appears to be barely half of the total number of pit bulls at any given time.
Despite unprecedented efforts to rehabilitate and rehome pit bulls, and despite rehoming more pit bulls than any other breed type, shelters have killed nearly a third of the U.S. pit bull population in each and every year for the past 10 years.
Most other nations do not share the U.S. pit bull surplus, but most do still have many times more dogs than good adoptive homes for them. Adopting dogs from abroad is an imperfect alternative to adopting locally, not least because it usually requires adopting dogs without prior acquaintance. As an alternative to purchasing a dog from a breeder, however, the difficulty and expense of adopting a dog from abroad at least inhibits impulse acquisitions, which all too often lead to equally impulsively dumping the dog.
Cats, unlike dogs, are seldom deliberately bred. But a November 2011 Associated Press/Petside.com national survey showed that 52% of cat keepers have adopted a stray from at large and 43% have adopted a cat from a shelter. These numbers affirm that even though the U.S. feral cat population is down by two-thirds or more since 1987, there is still no shortage of feral kittens who can be trapped, socialized, sterilized, and successfully adopted into homes.
The “Politics of Animal Liberation” item #10 recommendation that “Spay and neuter clinics should be subsidized by state and municipal governments” has already been achieved in much of the U.S. through the combination of granting such clinics nonprofit status, contracting with them to sterilize shelter animals before adoption, and funding mechanisms including special license plates, allocating a portion of lottery proceeds, and surcharges on pet food and paraphernalia. There is at this point little remaining disagreement that sterilizing dogs and cats is in the long run much more cost-effective than the catch-and-kill approach to municipal animal control which prevailed in 1987.
The concluding recommendation of “Politics of Animal Liberation” item #10, that commerce in exotic animals for the pet trade should be abolished, is now partially accomplished at the local, state, and federal levels, with further legislation advancing in many jurisdictions to tighten the existing laws, in light of the exotic animal release and subsequent shootings in October 2011 near Zanesville, Ohio. (The November/December 2011 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE featured coverage of the incident

[Wylie's Mom]

Originally Posted by gemy

I posted the Animal Rights Agenda in an earlier post. Here yet again is their stated goal, vs a vs breeding described in more detail.

Dogs & cats


Item #10 of “Politics of Animal Liberation,” strongly discouraging any further breeding of companion animals, including pedigreed or purebred dogs and cats, had become the policy of most major humane organizations by 1992, when ANIMAL PEOPLE debuted.

What really disturbs me about this and things like this being posted in this thread is that it seems/feels like you're lumping ALL animals rights/welfare people into the same big lump. As if every single one of them is a cookie cutter of the one next to them, as if we are of one mind.

Is that the way the we should also think of breeders? That one breeder is the exact same as a puppy mill breeder and so on? I wonder how the breeders would feel if we lumped them into one sloppy category and started posting things about what "breeders" beliefs are, at large. Do you realize how horrible that would appear, how outrageous? It's no different than how outrageous it is to lump us all together as if we're a bunch paint-throwing animal activists who desire an end to this and that.

Please, I ask that you don't think of me or anyone posting here in that manner bc I'm quite sure we have our own thoughts. This "Item #10" has never been and never will be my goal. It feels like some people are seeing an enemy in places where there is none here.

[ladyjane]

Yeah, I have a headache.

[gemy]

Originally Posted by Wylie's Mom

What really disturbs me about this and things like this being posted in this thread is that it seems/feels like you're lumping ALL animals rights/welfare people into the same big lump. As if every single one of them is a cookie cutter of the one next to them, as if we are of one mind.

Is that the way the we should also think of breeders? That one breeder is the exact same as a puppy mill breeder and so on? I wonder how the breeders would feel if we lumped them into one sloppy category and started posting things about what "breeders" beliefs are, at large. Do you realize how horrible that would appear, how outrageous? It's no different than how outrageous it is to lump us all together as if we're a bunch paint-throwing animal activists who desire an end to this and that.

Please, I ask that you don't think of me or anyone posting here in that manner bc I'm quite sure we have our own thoughts. This "Item #10" has never been and never will be my goal. It feels like some people are seeing an enemy in places where there is none here.

Actually Anne I am not lumping Animal rights advocates along with Animal Welfare advocates. In fact I make distinctions between the two. And have quite clearly stated I support Animal Welfare.

The linkings provided arewhat Animal Right Activists appear to say about themselves and is what is quite readily available out there on the net. And their full agenda as published is available on a earlier post of mine. And this movie links itself to Animal Rights Activists.

In fact I have repeatedly stated I am an Animal Welfare advocate, but not an Animal Rights Advocate. I did not link the two together at all. In fact one has no reason to link the two together at all.

In another posting I linked and copied a partial 10,000 word of a 30,000 word intellectual look or inquiry into Speciesism. That one was from 1978 3 yrs after Peter Singers views can out. That one article gave me more to think about then this movie did.