It Is Our Job to Fight for All of Them, Not Only Some of Them

Babe Amaral, owner of Rancho Veal, acknowledged that the gathering was peaceful, but he said he was a little puzzled by the protest.

“I couldn’t figure why they were coming after us,” he said. “We sold the veal business in 2005.”

Amaral said his company still processes older cows and bulls, but any veal calves that are brought to the plant are taken to the Central Valley.

The above comes from a news report about a vigil that took place outside a slaughterhouse for World Farm Animals Day last Friday. I don't doubt for a moment that the man was sincere -- that he really didn't understand the activists' objections. Is this what happens when some animal rights and animal welfare organizations and advocates focus so narrowly, loudly, and/or exclusively on veal, foie gras, fur, battery-cage eggs, and so on? Do people thus assume that other animals are OK to kill; that for other so-called foods and indulgences, other animals don't suffer; and that other animals and pieces of animals are acceptable to eat and wear? You can probably guess my answer.

Activists and organizations can continue battling against what they perceive to be the most extreme forms of suffering and cruelty, but unless those campaigns also consistently include (and conclude with) a clear position against all forms of exploitation, abuse, and killing of our fellow animals, we can keep expecting reactions such as the one above. We can keep expecting people to proudly, and with a sincere sense of intended compassion, tell us they eat only cage-free eggs and organic milk and that they never, never eat veal or foie gras -- we can expect them to tell us this over their lunch of the flesh of a six-week-old chicken or a six-month-old pig or a two-year-old cow -- for as long as we shout loudly about some forms of animal exploitation and killing while remaining more timid and quiet about others.

And parts of the animal rights movement and especially the animal welfare groups cannot blame them. We cannot blame people for not knowing if we do not tell them. We can't blame them for not knowing that there is every bit as much suffering in that glass of organic milk or bowl of ice cream or hamburger as in a piece of veal, every bit as much injustice and killing in that free-range egg as in that conventionally "produced" one, if it is because of our hesitation to advocate for all animals, unequivocally and equally and loudly -- and even because of some groups' intentionally misleading or less-than-honest campaigns -- that people make mistaken assumptions about what is cruel and what is not, about what is "humane" and what is not, about what is necessary and what is not, about what is compassionate and what is not. Industries and our society do a damn good job of hiding and sugarcoating and outright lying. And so our fellow compassionate humans will not know unless someone shows and tells them, just as we did not know until someone showed and told us.

It is not our job to advocate for some of the tens of billions of animals being exploited, abused, and killed each year. It is our job to fight for all of them.

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Edit: I want to clarify, in case there's any confusion, that the protest covered in this news report was indeed a vigil for all animals (which is why the slaughterhouse owner was perplexed -- he seemed to not understand what the activists were opposed to, given that he and they both knew the company was out of the veal business and was now killing only other, slightly older animals). The challenges in this post were aimed not at this group of advocates, but at the sorts of campaigns that made this group's consistent, for-all-animals vigil a point of confusion for the slaughterhouse owner.

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Photo by Flickr user marcelleitner bilderleben.at