Editor's Note: Wildlife Land Trust Director John F. Kullberg, Ed.D., who died on April 20, 2003, gave the keynote address at the Animal Rights 2002 Conference in McLean, Virginia, on July 2, 2002. Below is the text of his speech.

Let's come to one understanding right away. The animal rights movement is about caring people adopting increasingly compassionate lifestyles that give evidence of their personal, ethically driven commitment not to abuse those who have the capacity to suffer.

Each of us needs to be true to the voice within us called conscience, which tells us how our choices each day have an adverse or beneficial impact on ourselves and others, immediately or in the future. Understanding this, if we believe non-human as well as human animals have a right not to be abused, we have no other option but to be committed to becoming compassionate abolitionists in our personal lifestyles, a commitment that we may never totally fulfill, but an unavoidable compassion-driven commitment nevertheless. There is ultimately no middle ground, no quotient of acceptable abuse whenever the choice to abuse or not to abuse is up to us. Compassion is our personal guiding light, the raison d'etre of our lives, and our responsibility to become inclusively compassionate is an increasingly mandated ethical imperative, given the suffering our Earth and her sentient offspring endure from those among us who still remain so oblivious to the deadly consequences of abuse that so many of us support through our daily lifestyle choices.

Changing to a vegan diet, for example, is an unavoidable result of an animal rights-informed commitment to a more compassionate lifestyle, albeit some just can't discipline themselves to accept food and clothing lifestyle changes right now. Many committed to an animal rights philosophy may never make vegan food and clothing choices a "no exceptions" part of their lifestyles. That's OK. No one is perfect. But we need to admit, at least to ourselves, that this is something we should work toward. Our lifelong responsibility is to do whatever we can to diminish personal and social abuse, and a vegan lifestyle is an unavoidable part of that responsibility. Gatekeepers in this abuse-diminishing philosophical movement we have been attracted to, and most here tonight are committed to, will keep reminding us that non-violently produced food and clothing choices are logical consequences of this extraordinary opportunity we have been given to better understand what our interest in decreasing abuse logically requires of us. Who are these gatekeepers, these self proclaimed watchdogs over our personal lives? Our consciences. And who benefits? We do, society does, and so does our dear Mother Earth, whom we humans have taken such resource depleting advantage of for so long.

Gandhi said it best: We must be the change we wish to see in the world. Some of us, through luck and hard work, have had and may continue to have more opportunities than others to encourage abuse-diminishing changes in our families, our workplaces, our larger communities of friends and acquaintances and within governments that permit and even encourage abusive practices as paybacks to corporate leaders seeking marketplace advantages by generously contributing to political campaigns. One of the many ways social changes that diminish abuse are achieved is by working with legislators, some of whom have also adopted broadly compassionate personal lifestyles. For example, we may work toward passing federal and state legislation that effectively doubles the size of chicken crates in order to give chickens more room, or help citizens themselves pass laws through ballot initiatives that would prohibit the forced molting of hens, which means an end to starving them so that they lay more eggs. More chickens are raised and killed each year than any other animal. The animal rights abolitionist wants no more chickens raised and killed for meat and eggs, period. But the pragmatist within that abolitionist also understands that increasing the cage size to give chickens more room as well as prohibiting through ballot initiatives forced molting are the best ways possible at this moment in time to help literally billions of chickens suffer less each year while we continue to pursue legislation, ballot initiatives and other strategies to do better by them in the future.

A decision by an animal rights advocate to compromise ideals in favor of alleviating at least some abuse does not an animal welfareist make. In fact, those who do not agree with the right non-human animals have not to be abused may nonetheless agree with the same proposed legislation that animal rights advocates are promoting, and vice versa. This is often the case, given the realities of legislation and public tolerance of abuse. But we need to understand that being on the same side of the table does not necessarily give evidence of the personal values of the legislative advocate who is seeking at least a slightly better day for those chickens, cattle and other representatives of sentient species who are now enduring human caused abuse that needs, right now, human caused relief.

Acknowledging, legally and philosophically, that all animals share a right not to be abused by humans is the logical, more inclusive extension of our several human rights legislative successes, especially during the last century. By referring to rights we acknowledge consequent duties and responsibilities rather than kindnesses and possibilities. In every rights movement rights and consequent responsibilities are inseparable. Because of this, animal welfare and animal protection are inappropriate terms for the movement we have dedicated our lives to, and we need to be stronger witnesses to this reality rather than to feebly accommodate those who seem so dense about this. I have had success asking the question "Do you believe animals have a right not to be abused?" When the predictable, common sense answer is "Of course," I then let them know, often to their great surprise, that they are closet animal rightists. Defining our movement, including who is in and who is out, is that simple.

There is, nonetheless, much public confusion over what is meant by "animal rights". "All animals have a right not be abused" would probably not be used in a court of law, a reality Stephen Wise refers to in his book, Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights (Perseus Books, 2002, p. 34). "If I were Chief Justice of the Universe," Wise explains, "I might make the simpler capacity to suffer...sufficient for personhood and dignity-rights....
[P]hilosophers argue moral rights; judges decide legal rights. And so I present a legal, and not a philosophical, argument for the dignity-rights of non-human animals" [emphasis mine].

Stephen Wise served our movement well in making this too often overlooked and important distinction, but I would prefer his reference was to ethics, which uses reason and intuition to evaluate the rightness and wrongness of personal and social behavior. Morality often challenges logically derived ethical insights by requiring members of a given faith to accept beliefs that can defy logic and the objectively determined behavioral standards ethics is all about. Moral responsibilities that require the blind acceptance of religious tenets have been, and continue to be, engines of abuse. Whenever a religion promotes doing wrong to achieve some end, no matter how desirable that end may be, that religion should be exposed for the ethical deficiencies and social dangers it represents. No civilized, ethical society should tolerate any person or group, whether secular or religious, who rationalizes or promotes evil as a way to accomplish an end, even an objectively good end. The Spanish Inquisition years that thinking communicants of my own Roman Catholic religion are appropriately ashamed of is a case in point, as is the murdering of innocent men, women and children by morally brainwashed Muslim children who are praised and promised heavenly rewards for killing themselves in the process. Hormone-raging young men are told to do this in part because they will be immediately admitted into heaven where many virgins await their arrival. Ethically bankrupt Muslim radicals continue to promote these murders and the brainwashed nonsense accompanying them, and too many less radical Muslims rationalize rather than condemn these unethical and clearly abominable acts. Their defensive rationalizations only serve to put the entire Muslim religion under an ethical cloud. Thus our need to trust the objectivity of ethically acceptable behavior over the subjectivity of so-called moral teachings that promote evil in the name of religion.

Simplistically put, animal rights lawyers take on the flaws in and limitations of our laws and our courts. Animal rights philosophers look into their own souls, using logic and intuition as their guides and not just the law, in order to better understand why protecting all sentient life from abuse is a so profoundly important ethical awakening for so many people. We are all called upon to be ethicists when we evaluate and, in differing ways, become involved with any movement that seeks to diminish human abuse of sentient life. This includes the lawyers, doctors, veterinarians and teachers among us. Ethics best anchors our involvement in this extraordinary adventure we call the animal rights movement. And the basic, all-encompassing tenet of our ethical philosophy is that the end, what we want to achieve, must never be used to justify the means, the ways we choose to achieve that end. Martin Luther King eloquently addressed this critically important ethical standard, and our movement will inevitably fail when this standard is ignored. Peaceful means must never give way to violence, nor truth to lies, nor compassion to indifference. Violence and lies are the tools of abusers. They are not the tools of ethicists, the philosophical calling all animal rightists share.

Some who have dedicated their lives to helping animals prefer "animal protection" or "animal welfare" when referring to what they do. This is acceptable if their tactic is to help more people identify with our abuse-diminishing movement. That said, never underestimate the insights of those whom we appeal to lest we be seen by them as part of the problem. But it is not acceptable if references to welfare and protection reveal a rejection of our rights-based movement. Some say that the term animal rights is too closely identified with one group and that they do not want to be identified with what that group does to bring attention to our cause. And others simply do not believe animals have rights, but they love animals in any event, and some of these good people donate countless hours helping animals, especially at animal shelters. But it might be helpful to their appreciation of the animal rights movement were they to understand that every movement worth supporting has a radical element that boldly confronts those who demonstrate indifference to abuse or worse. Fortunately, our movement is no exception.

When are humans abusive? When, other than in self-defense when unjustly attacked or in the defense of others being unjustly attacked, we cause physical, mental and/or emotional pain and suffering. We are indirectly abusive whenever we support the abuse others do to fulfill our food, clothing, entertainment and other lifestyle preferences. This is why we must commit ourselves to living in ways that reflect broadly compassionate choices over abuse-infused conveniences. Sentient life is inevitably abused when we overuse, misuse, pollute and otherwise degrade and exhaust our natural resources. The most abusive human activities today are resource-related. In destroying natural habitats through overdevelopment and the clear-cutting of forests, for example, we inevitably diminish the ability of wild animals and, ultimately, the species they represent to survive. Loss of habitat, particularly to the degree that many governments still tolerate such losses, inevitably leads to extinction of yet more species, many of whom have evolved over millions and, in some instances, billions of years. Recent United Nations studies found that during the last century half of the world's forests and wetlands disappeared. In the next 30 years, 25% of the mammalian species we know today may no longer exist. Many demographers believe that by the end of this century our extraordinarily destructive human population, the principle cause of these losses, will double. Others believe our population will double much sooner. Absent significant increases in non-abusive lifestyles, as our numbers increase so will abuse on a planet that cannot tolerate the abuse now taking place.

Why do so many people have so much difficulty understanding the need for population control and the adoption of compassionate lifestyles as the two best ways of diminishing our abuse of sentient life and the natural resources sentient life requires? Much has to do with selfishly living for now and thus being indifferent to consuming more regardless of the consequences than caring about the future we pass on to others and thus consuming less. Resource-destructive and abuse-infused lifestyle preferences (food, fashion and entertainment choices, for example) and the indifference they manifest are the principal causes of the pain and suffering so many sentient lives now endure and will increasingly endure if ignorance and indifference continue to guide the lifestyle decisions of an increasing number of consumers who daily demonstrate an indifference to compassionately infused lifestyles.

A symbiotic relationship exists between the well-being of our shared environments and the well-being of all sentient life. Of increasing importance is the inseparable relationship between the environmental and animal rights movements. Indeed, the consequences of worldwide suffering that will inevitably increase when life-supporting resource needs can no longer be met is more threatening to the survival of all species than any other danger sentient life faces.

Efforts to diminish the overwhelmingly destructive consequences of globally tolerated sentient abuse need to be successful, and as quickly as possible. Our and our planet's long-term ability to survive yet another wave of human population growth depends on how effective we are in remedying the consequences of abuse while trying to change those social mores that remain so indifferent to abuse.

There are a variety of ways to advance an ethically based animal rights philosophy. Well-financed animal abusers, especially those who carry out the management decisions of large corporations that permit the abuse of living animals for food, research, fur garments and trinkets and other uses, do all they can to nurture social tolerance of abuse. They fear those who represent the animal rights movement because we are ethically right and those who promote and defend abuse are ethically wrong. While this sounds self-serving, think about it. Doing evil to achieve profit is what so many abusers are really all about. They live lives of tainted ethics. They demonstrate how, over time, unethical behaviors weaken and destroy the inherited ethical beacon of a strong conscience. The best that can be said for many of them is that, because of the mores of their communities and of the entertainments they choose, and the less than ethical values their families and even their places of worship and their schools instilled in them, their consciences and thus their judgments are inevitably impaired.

So many of the values we are daily exposed to can make many among us blind to abuse, especially to systemic abuse. This is especially true for those who do not understand the ethical imperative that abuse is always wrong. Too often we all fail to recognize the abuse we support. And those who know what they do is wrong but still boldly and arrogantly defend what is wrong give evidence of an overall indifference to ethically sustainable values altogether. Animal rights is the inclusive umbrella for all rights movements dedicated to diminishing and ending sentient abuse. We do not exist as a separate entity from the many battles that preceded an acknowledgement of the legal protections our human rights require. One of the major goals of the animal rights movement is also a goal that all rights movements seek: to make it a crime and thus a legal risk to abuse others. We should take some comfort in what our efforts have accomplished over the last 30 years in our own as well as in many other countries in large measure because of the successes, over the last 200 years, of the many movements dedicated to protecting various populations of humans from abuse. But we still are far from where we must soon be if our Earth is to continue its nurturing role in sustaining human and non-human animal life.

Since animal rights is anchored on centuries-old efforts to acknowledge human rights, avoiding references to our human rights inheritance is a major mistake if the overall animal rights movement is to receive the broad social respect it deserves for the protective responsibilities all who acknowledge and respect the rights of others share. After all, have we ever campaigned for civil welfare or women's and children's welfare and protection? It is no accident that these movements to protect humans from other humans are rights movements, as is the ethical movement whose protective shield encompasses all animals. We do not need to like animals, human or non-human, and we do not need to emotionally love animals. I am personally offended by the term animal lover, with its bestiality overtones and emotional fuzziness. But we are ethically obliged to respect the sentient nature all animals share and to consequently do what we can to protect them and us from those among us who are abusive. In recognizing the right not to be abused that human and non-human animals share we recognize the overwhelming personal and social importance and consequent responsibilities inherent in the ethical cause we are truly privileged to represent. Our movement, at its core, must always be identified as a rights movement, and a failure not to understand this is a failure of intelligence.

Be justifiably proud to be identified with the animal rights movement's raison d'etre, to protect all sentient life from abusive humans and abusive systems most humans still tolerate to fulfill their needs and preferences at the lowest financial costs possible, a savings preference that producers often bring up to rationalize abusive animal-based production systems, and their often central role in polluting and otherwise destroying community-dependent natural resources. We need to do a better job of addressing the real social and environmental costs of abuse.

Those who argue that smoking is a personal right, for example, fail to consider the health costs society bears from smoking-related diseases and rural as well as urban and suburban smoking-related fires. Social tolerance of abuse encourages seeing animals as things and not sentient beings. In this country wives, children and slaves once shared the opprobrium of legally being considered property. This is still the case in some other countries. Humans abusing humans who were women, children and slaves and whose nationalities were looked down upon, including those whose origins were Irish, Chinese and Scandinavian, legally ended when the law recognized their personhoods and rejected their status as humanely inferior property. Animal rights lawyers are now seeking similar personhood recognition for non-human animals, or at least some non-human animals, since this would establish a much needed legal precedent that recognizes protection from abuse for non-human animals as an inalienable right.

To be demeaned by anyone because you care about the well-being of all sentient life, human and non-human, as well as the nurturing resources sentient life depends upon, is a ludicrous consequence for those with expansive hearts, truly beautiful minds, and truly compassionate lifestyles. This is what an animal rights philosophy is really about. Understanding the importance of recognizing that all animals have an inherent right not to be abused by us and then following the ethical path this understanding leads us to is special indeed. You will have many opportunities to do good because you are good and you are on the side of good.

For the younger philosophers among us, welcome to this ethical adventure. And for everyone here tonight, let's take up Tom Regan's challenge and stay the course. The mental and emotional rewards of being good and doing good, personally and professionally, are many. Those committed to an ethically driven animal rights philosophy take strength from each other. Our tactics may differ, as will our opportunities and we may often disagree. But our abilities to reason and intuit how to diminish sentient abuse, always tested by why we do what we do, will continue to unite us as co-workers in a worldwide effort to correct the destructive and unavoidable consequences of abuse while we still have time to do so.