Rights versus welfare: The key differencesĀ
Animal welfare broadly refers to the feelings and physical wellbeing of an individual animal. Measuring these can indicate how well that individual is coping with their environment. On farms, for example, a sow who is confined to a farrowing crate may have poorer welfare than a sow who is able to nurse her babies and stretch her legs. However, regardless of good or bad welfare, both individuals have been reduced to the status of a product or resource ā which is where animal rights come in.Ā
Animal rights argue that the problem with animal exploitation is not how we use animals, but that we use them at all. It acknowledges that the sow in our example above, even if not confined to a farrowing crate or harmed in other ways, has been stripped of her value as an individual. This value exists regardless of how āusefulā or āprofitableā she is to humans ā it also exists regardless of how cute, friendly, intelligent or interesting an animal is.Ā
Animal rights in actionĀ
In practice, improving animal welfare may look like giving animals more space, better food or ānicerā deaths but animal rights seek a future where no animal is harmed or exploited in the first place. Sometimes this is straightforward, such as our campaign to ban snares, but for farmed animals, total liberation can only be achieved by people making the switch to a vegan diet.Ā
