Another example, and then I’m done. Imagine that your neighbor keeps his dog on a 3 foot chain in his backyard and regularly fails to provide the dog with food and water. The dog is miserable, suffering from thirst, hunger, cold, etc. You ask you neighbor if you can take the dog and provide him with a loving home, but your neighbor refuses to hand the dog over and threatens to shoot you if you try to come on his property to rescue the dog from his miserable condition (just like the police would do if you tried to break into a factory farm to rescue animals). Let’s say that there are no laws to protect dogs from this type of abuse (just as there are no laws protecting farm animals from abuses on factory farms) What are you going to do? What can you do?

You can tell all your neighbors to not buy dogs. You can work to pass legislation to protect dogs from this type of abuse. But that takes time. Winter is fast approaching and your neighbors dog has been without food for 3 days. What are you going to do?

Now, let’s say that you are able to convince your neighbor to let you build a doghouse for his dog and to give the dog food and water everyday. So you do that. Now the dog at least has enough to eat and drink and has some shelter from the cold and the rain and the snow. Of course, the dog is still chained up and miserable, but his life is a little better. You still work to get people to stop buying dogs and you still work to pass laws to protect dogs.

Now, let’s say that someone like James Crump sees what you did for that dog and calls you a welfarist. He tells people that you think it is okay to keep dogs on 3 foot chains in your backyard as long as they have food, water and shelter. How would that make you feel? Would you think that James was being fair and accurate or would you be insulted and say that that type of slander was inappropriate?

I know how I would feel about it.

From Wikipedia: “Animal welfare refers to the viewpoint that it is morally acceptable for humans to use nonhuman animals for food, in animal research, as clothing, and in entertainment, so long as unnecessary suffering is avoided. The position is contrasted with the animal rights position, which holds that other animals should not be used by, or regarded as the property of, humans.”

Francione deliberately used the term “new welfarist” to refer to abolitionists who take the incremental approach because it is inflammatory. It is insulting to call an animal rights activist a welfarist and Francione means to be insulting when he uses such rhetoric. Regardless of your position in the debate between the incremental vs the purist abolitionist positions, the term welfarist is misleading, slanderously inaccurate, insulting, and devisive.

Instead of fairly arguing the merits of either abolitionist position, Gary Francione, James Crump, and many others, use inflammatory rhetoric like this to imply that people who work for incremental change “support” or “promote” welfarist ideals. Basically, instead of arguing their position that incremental changes may empower animal exploitation, they are saying that animal rights activists who believe incremental changes will lead to animal liberation believe it is okay to use animals for food, research, slavery etc. Of course, that is not true, but for Francione and Crump, the truth doesn’t seem to matter.

Crump specifically states that Farm Sanctuary “promotes” the welfarist paradigm. He is saying that Farm Sanctuary thinks it is okay to use animals for food as long as it is done “humanely.” That is slanderous and does not help the movement in any way. He could have argued his purist abolitionist opinion without slandering Farm Sanctuary. This isn’t about which side of the abolitionist debate you are on. This is about being fair and honest.

One of the main reasons I lean toward the incrementalist approach is because of the slanderous rhetoric that Francione and others use to advance their purist position. Their position must be rather weak if they have to resort to slander and misleading rhetoric. It is a lot easier to gain support for the purist abolitionist position if you can paint the incrementalists as welfarists. No abolitionist would support a welfarist organization, but many abolitionists do support the incrementalist approach to abolition.

Read the next comment to see my position:

Obviously I have a different background on ‘reformist’ and ‘welfarist’ – perhaps it would be helpful if someone could point me to some reading that explicitly characterizes welfarists as something other than abolitionists? (No, I don’t think Crump’s inflammatory post counts, though it is misleading.)

Likewise, my husband and I went vegan partially because of a FS tour. And my nephew went vegetarian because of the same tour. Admittedly, the sanctuary tour was part of a larger picture of multiple causes and wasn’t the sole cause of our transformations, but it played a significant role.

Welfarists believe that it is okay to use animals as long as they are treated “humanely.”

Farm Sanctuary clearly states that it is not okay to use animals, even if it is done “humanely.”

Calling Farm Sanctuary a welfarist organization is slanderous. It is an abolitionist organization that believes welfare reforms will incrementally lead to abolition, while purist “all or nothing” abolitionist methods will unfortunately lead a small number of people going vegan while the population at large continues to exploit animals and view vegans as a fringe, radical group.

A true defence of Farm Sanctuary might start with the organization’s position statement on its website:

From farmsanctuary.org:

“At Farm Sanctuary, [farm] animals are our friends, not our food.”

“Farm Sanctuary opposes the slaughter, consumption and commodification of farm animals. Those who are sincere in their concern for animals and for the environment make a knotty compromise if they choose to eat ostensibly crate-free or free-range meat instead of a vegan diet. The degree to which so-called humane meat is more sustainable than factory-farmed meat is negligible; plant-based agriculture is far more environmentally sound than animal agriculture-whether “humane” or factory farmed. And, while some farmers may treat animals better than others, we achieve a much deeper compassion when we do not eat animals at all.”

“Farm Sanctuary has never and will never support so-called “humane” meat. We maintain that the words “humane” and “slaughter” are mutually exclusive.”

“Farm Sanctuary holds that legislative reform complements our aspiration to achieve a world free of the violence visited daily upon farm animals in animal agriculture. Incremental improvements are steps in a larger process. They serve to educate millions who have never before considered the plight of farm animals; they create modest improvements in the lives of farm animals; and they can squeeze the industry, making big agribusiness more accountable for the harm it causes.”