Information document (summary) of the Antispeciesist Movement

This is a summary of a document which clarifies in detail
the information criteria, the strategy, the organization and the statute of the Movement.

Introduction

As long as the majority of people continue to consider other living beings as "objects" rather than "subjects" (i.e. living beings of various levels of sensitivity and consciousness, as are humans), every voice in their favour will be useless. To overcome this barrier it is necessary primarily to make people aware of the origins and the consequences of a speciesist culture in order that the feeling of respect by man for other species, which was removed by its imposition, re-emerges.

A) Information criteria of the Antispeciesist Movement

Racism justifies fighting among species and within the same species, by the amoral principle of natural selection. For this purpose it applies a classification of living beings (including humans) based on a presumed level of "superiority" which arbitrarily grants them, to a greater or lesser degree, the right to life, to liberty, to well-being and to equality.

Speciesism, based on an exclusively anthropocentric idea, applies this concept only to species other than humans, by considering only humans to be worthy of the aforementioned rights.

Aspecies ethics, to which the Movement refers, is born of the principle that the right to life, to liberty, to well-being and to equality, cannot be denied to any conscious and sensitive, i.e. sentient, living being.

Simple biological differences between individuals or species cannot constitute a prejudice to the enjoyment of such fundamental rights, even taking into account their different individual needs. Furthermore, it's been scientifically proven that animals are sentient beings, that man does not need to eat meet, and that raw materials of animal origin can be replaced by those of vegetable or inorganic origin. Consequently, speciesist ethics traditions which believe animals' existence to be purely functional to man, no longer have any justification, and can gradually be phased out. This will happen as rapidly as the appropriate knowledge of these issues is spread. The Antispeciesist Movement refers therefore to the following principles as a primary aim:

B) Justification of the Antispeciesist Movement

The Antispeciesist Movement, while sharing the content of the "Charta 2000" of the L.I.D.A. (Sep. '99) which demands equality and the right to life for all species, believes that the Universal Declaration of Animal Rights presented to UNESCO on October 15^th 1978, submits to the concept of speciesism, since it allows people to kill animals, and thereby goes against its own declared principles.

The Antispeciesist cause cannot therefore be represented by groups who refer to such a declaration, but by persons who spread the antispeciesist principles without accepting political compromises, even while taking into consideration the need to modify current regulations gradually.

The main target of the Movement is to spread aspecies ethics and to support members who play official roles in associations, parties or institutional organizations, with the aim of establishing a moral current which would lead to the formation of aspecies legislation, in order that there should no longer remain "some animals more equal than others".

The Movement moreover respects the role that each animalist association plays, recognising the importance of their contribution in defending the common cause, and at the same time asks for a combined commitment of all animalist associations towards a common objective: the abolition of the killing and exploitation of animals, in the same way as exists for human beings.

- Information document (summary) -

Contents

Introduction

A) Information criteria of the Antispeciesist Movement

B) Justification of the Antispeciesist Movement