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.
Gary L. FrancioneIf you are not vegan, please consider going vegan. It’s a matter of nonviolence. Being vegan is your statement that you reject violence to other sentient beings, to yourself, and to the environment, on which all sentient beings depend.
Gary L. FrancioneWe cannot justify treating any sentient nonhuman as our property, as a resource, as a thing that we an use and kill for our purposes.
Gary L. FrancioneEven if plants were sentient, veganism would still be a moral imperative given that it takes many pounds of plants to produce one pound of flesh.
Gary L. FrancioneI find it very annoying that so many animal advocates talk about the difficulty of being vegan. Many animal advocates are inclined to make the issue their suffering and not the animals' suffering, and I suppose that accounts for part of the reason that veganism is portrayed as such a "sacrifice." And many animal advocates are not vegans, or are "flexible vegans," which means that they do not observe veganism at all or not consistently, and emphasizing the supposed difficulty of veganism is part of justifying their own behavior.
Gary L. Francione