AT: “Rights Talk Bad” - Permutation

AT: “Rights Talk Bad” – Alternatives Bad

http://www.personhood.org/main/faq.html

So if we shift our efforts away from welfare legislation, what do we do to protect them until we get them personhood and rights? Because it seems you are saying there is nothing that effectively protects them now.

Exactly. And to be precise, we don't ask that they be protected.  We ask that they be respected.  This makes a big difference as to how we see the other great apes. They are not our children.  Some people think women need to be protected too.  Women need no such thing, if given appropriate respect.

Helena Silverstein, Professor, Lafayette College of Government and law, 1996, Unleashing Rights: law, meaning and the animal rights movement, p. 116

Gary L. Francione, Professor of Law, Rutgers University, 1996, Rain Without Thunder, p. 169

In sum, Singer’s principle of equal consideration for equal interests may sound simple, but it is not at all clear what is required by its ideals, and practical application on the micro level is almost impossible because of uncertainty and controversy surrounding the assessment of consequences, the characterization of competing interests, and the weighing of those interests. But even if the uncertainty was reduced and the controversy diminished, the question of animal use would still have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. And herein lies what is perhaps the most important difference between rights theory and welfare theory for purposes of applying either to concrete situations. Singer may be correct to say that rights theory in general can become complicated in light of complex rule formulations and ranking structures to govern rights conflicts, but Regan’s rights theory provides relatively clear and unambiguous normative direction at the long-term level and on the level of personal moral choice as that choice involves the institutionalized exploitation of animals. Regan argues that his long-term goal is the abolition of the institutionalized exploitation of animals, and he argues that if we accept that animals have at least the basic right not to be treated exclusively as means to human ends, then certain animal uses, such as the eating of animals, or the use of animals in experiments to which the animal cannot consent, or the killing of animals to make clothes, cannot be morally unjustified. Period.
LIBERATION DISCOURSE NOT AS EFFECTIVE AS RIGHTS TALK

Helena Silverstein, Professor, Lafayette College of Government and law, 1996, Unleashing Rights: law, meaning and the animal rights movement, p. 115-6

In addition to the language of compassion, activists increasingly employ animal liberation in contrast to animal rights. As noted previously, the book that inspired the animal rights movement and is often cited as its bible is entitled Animal Liberation. Despite the title, the language of liberation never gained the prominence now associated with animal rights.

The language of liberation lacks the power of rights, probably because it is not a common language. Certainly the concept of liberty plays an important role in Western thought and ideology. Nonetheless, liberation does not bring with it the same kind of familiarity and popularity as does the language of rights, especially in the United States. This may well change as people move more and more to the concept of animal liberation. Utilitarians, uncomfortable with the notion of rights, feel more at ease with the language of liberation. Likewise, feminists concerned with the drawbacks of rights talk have moved toward the concept of liberation. But animal liberation as a general language for the movement is not likely to attain much power in the near future given that it is only recently that the notion of animal rights has begun to be taken seriously.