Strategic Analysis of Animal Welfare Legislation A Guide for the Perplexed

The current atmosphere within the animal rights movement inhibits productive discussion of contentious questions such as the advisability of animal welfare legislation. Significant structural and discursive adjustments within the movement will be necessary in order for activists to collaborate within multifaceted coordinated strategies for substantial change. In the interim, proposed measures ought to be analyzed individually rather than categorically condoned or condemned. Strategic analyses of proposed animal welfare, rights, or liberation tactics always must center on the interests of animals as expressed by animals themselves or as may be inferred from close study of their physiology and behavior. Analysis of proposed animal welfare legislation ought also to take account of contemporary conditions, such as the economic conditions driving the exploitive industry in question, as well as long-term strategic aims. Insofar as possible, such analyses ought to assess certain or highly probable outcomes, eschewing speculation based on theories or analogies. Material analysis of the case example of battery cages reveals that the abolition of this factory farming practice would substantially reduce animal suffering, would reduce the number of animal exploited for the purpose of egg production, and could not possibly increase egg consumption. In the long term, this tactic could be one component of a coordinated strategy aimed at reducing the profitability of egg production to the point of economic inviability. Such strategies may be the fastest way of undermining for-profit exploitation of animals, especially in the current economic context of rising feed costs.