Animals, Property, and the Law

by Francione, Gary L.

• ISBN13: 9781566392846
• ISBN10: 1566392845
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-04-28
• Publisher: Temple Univ Pr

Summary

"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. Author note: Gary L. Francioneis Professor of Law and Nicholas de B. Katzenbach Scholar of Law at Rutgers University Law School, Newark. He is also Co-director of the Rutgers Animal Rights Law Center.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction: Legal Welfarism: The Consequences of the Property Status of Animals	p. 3
The Status of Animals as Property	p. 15
The Problem: "Unnecessary" Suffering and the "Humane" Treatment of Property	p. 17
The Dominion of Humans over Animals, the "Defects" of Animals, and the Common Law	p. 33
Two Examples of Legal Welfarism	p. 50
The Exclusion of Animal Interests from Legal Consideration - the Doctrine of Standing	p. 65
Laws and Rights: Claims, Benefits, Interests, and the Instrumental Status of Animals	p. 91
A General Application of the Theory: Anticruelty Statutes	p. 117
The Purposes of Anticruelty Statutes	p. 119
Anticruelty Statutes and the Protection of the Institutionalized Exploitation of Animals	p. 134
A Specific Application of the Theory: The Regulation of Animal Experimentation	p. 163
Animal Experimentation: Animal Property and Human "Benefit"	p. 165
The Federal Animal Welfare Act	p. 185
Administrative Regulation of the Animal Welfare Act	p. 208
The Animal Welfare Act in the Courts	p. 234
Epilogue: An Alternative to Legal Welfarism?	p. 251
Explanation of Legal Citations	p. 265
Notes	p. 269
Selected Bibliography	p. 331
Index	p. 345
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