The Tactics of Achieving the Abolition of Animal Cruelty

Veganism is a lifestyle of peace and compassion that seeks to eradicate all animal and human suffering. Vegan activists and animal rights organizations fight every day to bring about the peaceful, cruelty free world all animals and humans deserve. While we wish everyone would wake up and understand that animals are sentient beings who feel pain, that we do not need to be eating them, that animal cruelty also harms us, and animal agriculture is destroying the planet, unfortunately greed and selfish politicians and businesses refuse to change. We want a vegan world now, but we must also accept it won’t be immediate.

Due to this heartbreaking reality that slaves won’t be freed from their abusers immediately, we can take steps to at least lessen their suffering until that glorious day. And these steps actually do help lead to that cruelty free day. In fact, it was this tactic that the original abolitionists of the human slave trade utilized to end human slavery. First they banned importing new slaves from Africa to the Americas, then they managed to get cities, counties, and even states to ban slaver ownership. They further harmed the slavers by having laws created that would restrict how many slaves a person could own, how they could treat them, and even further implemented laws that required slaves to be freed under certain circumstances.

Abolitionists wanted the slave trade to end immediately, but it was too powerful to abruptly stop, and so many people were brainwashed into believing that cruelty was “justified” or “necessary.” But, chipping away at the powerful industry with these smaller laws eventually weakened it so much that finally slavery was outlawed with the Emancipation Proclamation.

So, how do we implement these same tactics in ending animal cruelty? Well, they are already being done and are in fact working. Due to these smaller laws and changes we are seeing even the most powerful industries beginning to crumble, and have seen some so damaged they are all but out of business. Some have finally been banned in countries.

What are these tactics and which industries are losing because of them?

Industries Being Chipped Away

Rodeos implement cruel devices to force bulls and horses to buck, to make calves run away, and animals to “race.” Without using tasers to shock the animals, straps to tie the penises of bulls and horses, and spurs to hurt the animals, these animals wouldn’t buck nor run as fast as they can to get away. Cities, due to the concerns of citizens and the educational work of animal rights groups, are beginning to ban these cruel devices from being used on animals. Since PBR and rodeos depend on them to make the animals behave in a certain way, the rodeos must go to other cities. As more and more cities and states do this, the rodeos won’t have anywhere they can go and must quit. As they weaken with loss of money from being unable to go places, they won’t be able to afford lawyers or lobbyists to defend themselves against new laws outright banning rodeos, nor be able to afford to pay for misinformation to be spread allowing the truth to be shared more widely.

We have seen this in action in several cities, and rodeos already banned in some countries such as the UK.

Another industry that can be greatly harmed by banning even one “tool” is horseracing. Horseracing depends on beating a horse with a crop, stick, or anything to make them run so hard and fast. This is why the horseracing industry fights so hard to not have the whip or beating of horses banned despite horses feeling pain exactly as we do. Banning the whip will cause them to be unable to race the horses so hard, which will make them not run as fast, which not only will cause less breakdowns (broken legs, heart attacks, etc) on the tracks, but many of those involved in horseracing will have to quit because they can’t make the money they used to.

Even those in the horseracing industry admit that banning the whip would effectively destroy the industry.

Banning them also using other tools such as tongue ties, bits, etc. will cause them to be unable to control the horses as effectively as they can, which means they can’t force the horses to do these things the horses simply do not want to do.

We have seen the greyhound racing industry all but eradicated in the US due to smaller laws being passed in various states, until now where only one track remains and a bill to outright ban the blood sport being introduced.


Timeline of the Abolitionist Movement: https://www.britannica.com/summary/Abolitionism-Timeline

Abolitionist Movement Timeline: https://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/inline-pdfs/Timeline%20of%20the%20Abolitionist%20Movement.pdf

Abolitionism Timeline: https://glc.yale.edu/abolitionism-timeline

Timeline of Slavery and Abolition: http://www.americanabolitionists.com/us-abolition-and-anti-slavery-timeline.html