On Animal Rights

The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.

— Ida B. Wells-Barnett

As I sat high in the stands of Pamplona's bullring and recovered from my run with the bulls, I felt a troubling call of my conscience. It was more of a whisper, really, but it was unwelcome and at first I ignored it. Below me, several young bulls were running loose in the arena, which was filled with scores of revelers like me who had just participated in the city's famed sprint through cobblestone streets. The hooligans were now engaged in what is known in Spain as a vaquilla — a spectacle that traditionally follows the bull run and apparently calls for the fiesta-goers to taunt smaller bulls and smack them with rolled-up newspapers.

Suddenly a nimble young bull scooped up a runner with his horns and tossed him over his back. That's when my conscience whispered to me again. It dawned on me that these animals — and the bulls I'd run with, who would die later that day in the bullring — deserve mercy, not misery. It was July of 1992, and up to that time, I'd never given much thought to the dignity or needs of animals. But that whisper was the voice of integrity tugging at my sleeve, and I couldn't shake it. A few months later, after an enlightening face-to-face encounter with a cow in India, I put the meat-eating phase of my life behind me and went vegetarian. It took another decade for me to go vegan, but when I did, the plight of animals became part of my world in a way that I never would have imagined possible. Now I'm the one tugging on sleeves.

Today, as an activist and ethical vegan, I look back on my experience in Pamplona with a combination of shame and gratitude. I am certainly not proud to have supported the blood "sport" of bullfighting. But being so close to bulls one moment and then confronting the horror of their fate the next helped me understand that we have an obligation to look out for the vulnerable, regardless of their species. It awakened something in me. Many of us have experiences like this. For some, it takes only one such moment to recognize our collective responsibility. For most of us, though, it's a more gradual process through which we decide what role compassion will play in our lives.

Our Moral Contradictions

The essential quandary of the animal rights movement might be summed up in this question: Why do humans love some animals and eat (or otherwise abuse) others? According to the Humane Society of the United States, 47 percent of all households in the country have at least one dog and 46 percent have at least one cat — and other homes have many more — resulting in a population of some 83 million dogs and 95 million cats living with humans. Other countries, notably Australia, Canada, and England, have a similar affection for these animals. In Japan, many people prefer pets to parenthood, with dogs and cats far outnumbering children younger than 15. On top of this worldwide affinity for felines and canines are millions more rabbits, hamsters, rats, mice, birds, horses, and other pets. Most of these animals are treated like members of the family, often receiving birthday and holiday presents. They are carried about like infants. Some have social media accounts. They are outfitted in designer fashions and included in family portraits. We spend about US$60 billion a year feeding them and keeping them healthy, and we mourn their deaths — frequently with the same profound grief we experience over the loss of our dearest human loved ones. The status of pets has increased so much in our society that many animal lovers have taken to referring to them as companion animals.

On the other end of the spectrum are animals our culture eats. Needless to say, these chickens, fishes, pigs, cows, sheep, goats, turkeys, ducks, and geese are treated quite differently than the dogs and cats. Yet, imagine if our beloved companion animals were abused like animals in a farm: crammed into windowless sheds, lying in their own excrement, denied many of their natural instincts, their bodies mutilated, fed a toxic concoction of feed and pharmaceuticals to keep them alive, and then, finally, hauled for many miles to a slaughterhouse, where they witness the terrifying deaths of their fellows before they themselves are killed. These animals receive no love, let alone a special treat on their birthdays. Indeed, most of them are still babies when they are slaughtered.

Our relationship with other species is inconsistent, to say the least. But if our moral contradictions are troubling, relatively few people let on. Instead, they sleep under the dome of cognitive dissonance — a fancy term for the subtle discomfort we experience (often just a whisper) when holding two incompatible thoughts, or cognitions, at the same time. For example, millions of people smoke tobacco, despite knowing that smoking is bad for them. In the case of animals, people can alleviate cognitive dissonance by according animals moral status and going vegan, but only a small percentage of people have taken that course (so far).

The answer to our question, I think, as to why we as a society are able to love some animals and eat others, is that most people don't usually think of meat as coming from an animal — at least, they don't consciously process it that way. To them, meat is something you buy in the grocery store, sterile and removed from the violence of the animal's death, or order at a restaurant. I doubt they could live with themselves if they put pigs on the same level as dogs; in fact, that's why many omnivores (those who eat animal- and plant-based foods, which is to say most people) are so resistant to the animal rights message: it threatens to either remove animals from their diet (an old habit) or make them feel guilty for eating them.

Animal-consumers continue their habits with a clear conscience by rejecting the notion that animals are anything but mindless, emotionless creatures. It's difficult to eat someone when you accept that she or he has a personality, experiences pain, and wants to live. It makes it even harder to maintain moral ambivalence when you learn these same animals are good mothers who grieve the loss of their babies or that they become terrified when they see other animals being killed — it's not at all uncommon for frightened cows and pigs to escape a slaughterhouse and literally run for their lives, though sadly very few end up in the safety of a sanctuary. Animal sentience is the most inconvenient truth of all.

Our cognitive dissonance extends beyond farmed animals to include those used for testing,...