Has the Animal Rights Movement Gone Too Far?

A recent Time magazine article by Adam Cohen asked: "Can animal rights go too far?" The article introduces readers to the animal rights movement. It covers a lot of ground in a relatively short space, from the banning of foie gras to chaining dogs to animal rights courses in law schools.

Cohen writes that California has passed a "strict" law requiring larger cages for egg laying hens, and that Ohio is now implementing  "tough new animal-rights laws" which include "phasing out a particularly harsh kind of crate for pregnant sows and banning the strangulation of pigs and cows." Cohen is using the widespread public support of these laws to prove that animal rights has leaked into mainstream consciousness. But these are not animal rights laws; these are anti-cruelty laws.

The theory of animal rights demands more than Cohen's idea of "requiring animals, including animals that produce or become food, to be treated decently." Animal rightists do fight for improved conditions in factory farms, but the end goal is to have factory farming abolished completely.

Cohen briefly writes about philosopher Peter Singer, who sparked the modern animal rights movement in 1975 with his book Animal Liberation. Cohen also mentions speciesism, a term Peter Singer popularized, but neglects to elaborate on what the word means. Singer's position on animal rights and speciesism is that if a creature is sentient, it has interests that are equally considerable to other sentient creatures. Singer's philosophy of animal rights, although well known, has not been embraced by the masses.

But there has been momentum in the movement against industrialized farming and many animal rights principles have become mainstream views. Most people conceive of animals in moral terms of some type, and most find the torture of animals morally inexcusable. This general consensus against animal cruelty is why there are restrictions on the use of animals, but most people are not for abolishing the use of animals entirely.

Cohen concludes his article: "Like any worthy cause, animal rights can be taken too far, and sometimes it is." But for those who hope to see the end of factory farming, not just slightly larger cages or slightly less brutal deaths, the movement has not gone too far. In fact, there is still a long way to go.