Animal Rights Concerns

Animals, Property and the Law (Ethics And Action)

Author: Gary Francione
ISBN-nr: 1566392845
Category: Animal Rights Issues
added by terri

With Animals, Property, and the Law (1995) Gary L. Francione (building on Tom Regan's The Case for Animal Rights) argues that animals enjoy very little legal protection because of a very simple reason: animals are regarded as property, and "property" has no rights of its own.

Francione argues that because animals are the property of humans, laws that supposedly require their “humane” treatment and prohibit the infliction of “unnecessary” harm do not provide any significant level of protection for animal interests.

Animals, Property, and the Law
By Gary Lawrence Francione
Published by Temple University Press, 1995
ISBN 1566392845, 9781566392846
349 pages

Foreword by William M. Kunstler, Esq.

"Pain is pain, irrespective of the race, sex, or species of the victim," states William Kunstler in his foreword. This moral concern for the suffering of animals and their legal status is the basis for Gary L. Francione's profound book, which asks, Why has the law failed to protect animals from exploitation?

Francione argues that the current legal standard of animal welfare does not and cannot establish fights for animals. As long as they are viewed as property, animals will be subject to suffering for the social and economic benefit of human beings.

Exploring every facet of this heated issue, Francione discusses the history of the treatment of animals, anticruelty statutes, vivisection, the Federal Animal Welfare Act, and specific cases such as the controversial injury of anaesthetized baboons at the University of Pennsylvania. He thoroughly documents the paradoxical gap between our professed concern with humane treatment of animals and the overriding practice of abuse permitted by U.S. law.

Content

Foreword – William M. Kunstler, Esq.
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction: Legal Welfarism: The Consequences of the Property Status of Animals

Part I: The Status of Animals as Property
1. The Problem: "Unnecessary" Suffering and the "Humane" Treatment of Property
2. The Dominion of Humans over Animals, the "Defects" of Animals, and the Common Law
3. Two Examples of Legal Welfarism
4. The Exclusion of Animal Interests from Legal Consideration—the Doctrine of Standing
5. Laws and Rights: Claims, Benefits, Interests, and the Instrumental Status of Animals
Part I Conclusion

Part II: A General Application of the Theory: Anticruelty Statutes
6. The Purposes of Anticruelty Statutes
7. Anticruelty Statutes and the Protection of the Institutionalized Exploitation of Animals
Part II Conclusion

Part III: A Specific Application of the Theory: The Regulation of Animal Experimentation
8. Animal Experimentation: Animal Property and Human "Benefit"
9. The Federal Animal Welfare Act
10. The Administrative Regulation of the Animal Welfare Act
11. The Animal Welfare Act in the Courts
Part III Conclusion

Epilogue: An Alternative to Legal Welfarism?
Explanation of Legal Citations
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Reviews

"Here is a work of unquestionable historic importance the likes of which the world of ideas has never seen before: profound in its conception, execution, and its possible consequences. Gary Francione brings a real world understanding second to none in how American law impacts animals. It will be of interest to professionals in law, philosophy, government, veterinary medicine, and political science, but also among those who 'use' animals and those who profess the desire to protect them." Tom Regan, North Caroling State University

"Gary Francione's important contribution to the history of ideas places animal exploitation in its legal, philosophical, and economic context. A thorough, scholarly, and much-needed analysis that should be considered seriously even by those who disagree with the notion of animal rights." William A. J. Watson, University of Georgia

Related Resources: Video: Animals as property. By Gary Francione