California Proposition 2

Two days ago history was made in the United States, for better and for worse. America elected its first black president, but also took away the rights of homosexuals to marry in California (Prop 8). Another Proposition that was up on the chopping board in California that had people waiting the outcome with bated breath was Proposition 2.

Proposition 2 was specifically to do with veal crates, battery cages, and sow gestation crates. If passed, it would prohibit these crates/cages that did not allow the animal inside to turn around, lay down, stretch their legs, or stand up freely.

By now, most people are beginning to understand that the days of happy farms with wandering chickens in the yard, cows mooing out in the pasture, and happy pigs in mud puddles are a figment of the past. Factory farming is the name of the game now, and animals are mere commodities, not unlike boxes on a shelf in that they have no rights, no personal space, and no semblance of a natural life (from birth to subsequent death). This proposition was working to reverse that, was trying to take that first step in the opposite direction. That first step was that the animals being confined should at least be able to stand, sit, turn and lay down in their confinement.

This proposition had the animal rights world in a frenzy, but not exactly how you would imagine. Not only was there the expected pro/con debate going on, with supporters of the proposition citing animal rights and the health of the animals and our food (close confinement breeds disease among the animals, for example) and opponents (mostly those working in the animal husbandry industry or directly related) resisting the proposition mostly due to the increased cost of food production in the absence of these cages.

However, there was also a pretty divided split among the animal rights world as to whether anyone should even support such a proposition. In the animal rights world, there were people crying 'No' to Proposition 2, and it all boils down to animal welfarism versus animal abolitionism.

Animal Abolitionists say that those pigs, chickens and calves shouldn't even be eaten, and therefore whether they are comfortable before their death is neither here nor there, because they will be slaughtered, they will be eaten, and we shouldn't support the abusers by paving an animal's journey to the carnivore's plate.

Animal Welfarists, on the other hand, say that in today's world it is asking too much to close down all factory farms and animal farms in general, because the world is not yet ready to forego eating meat. So if it must be, then at the very least what we can do is make the animal's short life as comfortable as possible with laws dictating their humane treatment, and make their death as compassionate as can be.

Up until a few months ago I had no idea that there existed such a debate. Now I see both sides of the fence and wonder where I stand. I think it depends on how far you are going to reach into realism or idealism in your stance of animal rights.

Proposition 2 was passed two days ago with a 63% majority, so in the next couple of years there will be changes taking place in California.

While similar propositions have been enacted in various other states, they never included chicken battery cages in their amendments, focusing instead only on pigs or calves (or bot), so this is a landmark decision which will hopefully spurn similar decisions across the States.

I'll probably write more about abolitionism versus welfarism at another time, but right now I will say this.

The animal rights world at this very moment is shaky, at best. Our members are spread far and wide, with no centralised core, which makes for a weak foundation. Added to that is the fact that our topics are so incredibly diverse- rodeos, circuses, zoos, animals in food production, domestic animal abuse, hunting, the fur trade, the seal slaughter, fishing, whaling, vivisection, the list goes on and on and on. In short, we have so much to do and so little people to support us. The movement is still young.

Therefore, in regards to Proposition 2, we need both the abolitionists and the welfarists. We need people who are there fighting for an end to all animal food production, and the welfarists there looking out for the animals in the factory farms until everything is closed down. No battle was ever won by just idealists, nor was it won by realists alone.

Abolitionists and welfarists should stop bickering with eachother and just focus on what they are respectively fighting for, and together, little by little and maybe without intending to, they will help eachother get to their common goal.