The distinction between meat and other animal products is total nonsense. Vegetarianism is a morally incoherent position. If you regard animals as members of the moral community, you really don’t have a choice but to go vegan.

Not only are the philosophies of animal rights and animal welfare separated by irreconcilable differences... the enactment of animal welfare measures actually impedes the achievement of animal rights... Welfare reforms, by their very nature, can only serve to retard the pace at which animal rights goals are achieved.

The theory of animal rights simply is not consistent with the theory of animal welfare... Animal rights means dramatic social changes for humans and non-humans alike; if our bourgeois values prevent us from accepting those changes, then we have no right to call ourselves advocates of animal rights.

None of that is necessary. It's not as if we're in a situation where it is us or them.There's something peculiar about talking about the moral status of animals, when we are killing and eating them for no reason whatsoever.

We cannot justify treating any sentient nonhuman as our property, as a resource, as a thing that we an use and kill for our purposes.

I certainly believe that we have a moral obligation to care for the dogs, cats, and other nonhumans whose existence we have caused or facilitated as part of the institution of 'pet' ownership. But I maintain that we ought to abolish the institution and stop causing or facilitating the existence of more 'companion' animals.

We can no more justify using nonhumans as human resources than we can justify human slavery. Animal use and slavery have at least one important point in common: both institutions treat sentient beings exclusively as resources of others. That cannot be justified with respect to humans; it cannot be justified with respect to nonhumans—however “humanely” we treat them.