Gary Francione on NZ Vegan Podcast 8/11

[Billy L]

http://nzveganpodcast.blogspot.com/2011/08/nz-vegan-podcast-episode...

Something struck me after hearing this first part of the interview. This may seem like an attempt at a "gotcha", and I am playing devil's advocate a bit, but I thought I would put it out as something to discuss.

In the animal shelter world in the USA, there is a movement led by vegan author/advocate Nathan Winograd called No Kill Nation which has several steps for shelters and communities to end killing of healthy shelter animals and get them adopted instead. It's backed up by very inspirational and transformational success stories (empirical evidence). http://www.thenokillnation.com/

I'm positing (as devil's advocate) that to promote pulling, trap-neuter-return, individual adoptions, etc. without a strong no-kill message is similar to Professor Francione's criticism of the actions of welfare advocates that either don't promote veganism, or present veganism as the most difficult of many choices to reduce suffering. It might be a closer analogy to compare Francione's criticism of open rescue with rescue without no-kill promotion, but open rescue wasn't mentioned in this part of the interview.

Granted, TNR and adopting is not making people feel better about euthanizing cats and dogs, the way that free-range eggs or "humane" raised meat apparently alleviates consumer's conscience, but aren't the two similar in the desire to help individual animals while working toward the ultimate goal of abolishing their killing (and not having the "proper" message being promoted as the solution)?

I'm curious to know what others think.  

[Billy L]

Ok, just thought of an important clarification. Third paragraph, first sentence.

I'm positing (as devil's advocate) that to promote pulling, trap-neuter-return, individual adoptions, etc. without a strong no-kill message or perhaps instead of solely advocating no-kill, is similar to Professor Francione's criticism of the actions of welfare advocates that either don't promote veganism, or present veganism as the most difficult of many choices to reduce suffering.

[Billy L]

I am aware that Elizabeth Collins and Gary Francione promote veganism unequivocally, 100% of the time.