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The Cause to Help Animals
Why Disagreements Are Okay
By Frank McMillan, DVM
How many times have you heard this argument similar can believe anything they say?
It's a tried-and-true way to undermine a group's credibility, and it's one that has been leveled repeatedly at the cause of animal welfare. Opponents of pro-animal causes don't so much use the "divide and conquer" strategy as they do the "divide and discredit" one. The claim is that disagreement equates to weakness of argument. Let's take a look at this claim.
The first aspect is the issue of disagreements between groups. I'll start by calling the pro-animal enterprise - the cause that has the goal of protecting animals and eliminating animal suffering - the "animal welfare movement," which, somewhat ironically, is itself the first point of disagreement. Some prefer to be called animal advocates, while others adopt other names for themselves, such as animal activists, defenders or simply animal lovers. Some groups regard themselves as animal rights organizations, while other groups don't represent rights, preferring to be associated instead with the more inclusive concept of animal welfare.
Points of contention
Of course, there are many other areas of disagreement. Certainly one of the biggest points of contention is the best way to spend money to help animals. Some groups (like Best Friends) believe that needed medical care for a single severely ill or severely neglected or abused animal is money well spent. We believe that every animal should be given a chance to live and enjoy life, especially those who have suffered great misfortune. Other groups, just as compassionate about animals, would argue that the money needed to treat very ill or injured animals would help many more animals if used to fund spay and neuter surgeries.
Another area of disagreement in helping animals is the methods used to achieve our goals. Everyone is aware of the high-profile demonstrations by activist groups, while perhaps quite unaware of the efforts of groups that use less attention-getting strategies to help animals. The "in your face" activism risks offending people or turning them away from the cause, but there is no denying that such methods receive the most media publicity.
For many issues, there is nothing remotely close to a consensus in the animal welfare movement as to which methods are best. If a puppy mill operator closes down because he fails to comply with legal regulations, he will often put all his dogs up for sale. Some animal groups advocate for buying all of these dogs and rehabilitating them for adoption into loving homes. Other groups argue that this is very wrong because it gives the puppy mill owner a big influx of cash that will be used to buy a whole new group of dogs to set up a puppy mill right down the street.
Other examples of disagreement: Kidney transplant surgery has become relatively common in cats with failing kidneys - but the donor of the kidney is a cat who obviously hasn't consented to such a surgery. Yet it is a standard requirement that the donor cat be adopted into the household of the recipient cat, which is a far happier outcome for the donor than the likely euthanasia he or she would have otherwise faced.
Some animal advocates support this policy, arguing that it saves two cats' lives. Others disagree, claiming that we have no right to use an animal as a supplier of spare parts, especially when it involves undergoing a major surgery. Some groups believe that cats should be allowed to go outside; others believe strongly that all cats should be confined to life indoors.
One disagreement that received considerable press coverage was what should be done with the former fighting dogs taken from the property of football player Michael Vick. Very few people reading this magazine are unaware of the fact that Best Friends and other groups argued passionately that these dogs should be given a chance at a new life - one with love and compassion. Some other animal welfare groups strongly disagreed, arguing that these dogs would never adjust successfully to normal life and would forever be a risk to human safety, so the kindest thing would be to euthanize them.
Agreeing to disagree
The second aspect of the opening question is whether this disagreement and disharmony undermine the credibility of the animal welfare movement. Let's look at some similar situations, starting with movements in America. It is widely known that during the 1840s and 1850s a movement to end slavery was growing rapidly. What's not well known is that the anti-slavery movement had different factions, each advocating a very different method to end slavery. The abolitionists wanted an immediate and complete emancipation of slaves; the gradualists argued for a gradual phasing out of slavery; and the colonizationists proposed establishing colonies in other countries where freed slaves could be relocated. But did these major disagreements in any way discredit the anti-slavery movement? Not at all.
Using another example, American society today is in broad agreement that an important goal is to prevent illicit drug use, yet there is considerable disagreement as to the best way to achieve this. Some say efforts should be directed at education and rehabilitation; others promote enforcing laws and punishing the violators. These are very different approaches, but they don't diminish the value and credibility of the cause itself.
Caring for the homeless, combating terrorism, feeding the world's hungry, reforming the American health-care system (and on and on) are all causes that are laden with disagreements but are no less noble because of them. Think of it: It's hard to imagine anything causing more argument and contention than the views of the two major U.S. political parties, yet this doesn't undermine at all the credibility of democracy itself.
But let's get back to animal welfare. If all the welfare groups have the same goal - to protect animals and eliminate their suffering - then why all the disagreement? One simple reason: We don't know how to quantify suffering. Is it better to spend money to relieve the mild suffering of 100 horses or the severe suffering of five horses? Is ongoing physical abuse worse than an animal being abandoned and left to starve? Is a chimpanzee's suffering more, less or equal to the suffering of a mouse? How much suffering is prevented by spaying 20 cats, and what's the math we use to compare that amount to the suffering relieved by treating a severely injured homeless dog who was hit by a car while roaming the streets?
Until we develop a foolproof way to measure the "amount" of suffering, people will continue to disagree about the care of animals, since everyone's calculation of suffering is going to be different.
If you still aren't quite seeing how the issue of suffering makes animal welfare issues so difficult to agree upon (and why it's not only OK, but expected that we will disagree on the answers), let me leave you with this scenario: You're at home, flipping through the channels on TV, and you come across a nature show about Africa and see a cheetah in full pursuit of a fleeing gazelle. If the cheetah succeeds, the gazelle dies an unpleasant death, but if the cheetah doesn't succeed, he will suffer from hunger. As you watch the chase, who are you rooting for?
Veterinarian Franklin McMillan has been the director of wellbeing studies at Best Friends since October 2007.
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