On Saturday, in the National Journal Magazine’s cover story titled “Animals Rights on the March,” journalist Paul Starobin chronicles the history of the animal rights movement, and how it has evolved into “a sophisticated, well organized movement.” As is often the case with social justice causes, the marginal has become the mainstream, according to Starobin. Highlighting the success of California’s 2008 ballot initiative requiring farmers in the state to provide animals with adequate room to turn around, lie down and extend their limbs, Starobin observes that the American public seems to favor according at least minimal rights to farmed animals.
Starobin also details ambitious initiatives spearheaded by movement leaders, such as the establishment of a Federal Animal Protection Commission, modeled on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and a campaign to garner legal standing for non-human animals.
The article discusses the place veganism holds in today’s animal rights movement, and hails the Pew Commission’s call for an industry-wide adoption of “five freedoms” for farmed animals, which Starobin suggests are emerging global standards. The Commission’s five freedoms include freedom from hunger, thirst, discomfort, pain and fear, among others.
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