The title of this program probably has half of the audience upset. The term "animal rights" is a term many of us involved in agriculture have vowed to never speak. We feel like the use of the term will promote a train of thought that we do not wish to promote. Wrong!

If I call Joe an animal welfarist and he is actually an animal rightist, I have just done Joe a favor. "Oh, Joe cares about animals so much!" Joe is a good guy in the eyes of the public even though he may believe in an extreme "animal rights" or even "animal liberation" philosophy. Call an animal rightist an animal rightist, and an animal welfarist an animal welfarist.

For the next few minutes I would like to explore the popular concepts of animal rights and animal welfare. Then, I will take you a little deeper into the philosophical concepts involved in the human and animal relationship. To get you into the frame of mind of where we are going, let me ask you a couple of questions:

What would you do if you were one of three people stranded at sea with a large dog in a small lifeboat? The boat is overloaded, sinking, someone must be thrown overboard for the rest to survive, and there are sharks circling the boat. Who is thrown over?

You are driving down a tree-lined country road at fifty-five miles an hour. If something were to suddenly get in the roadway and you could not stop, the only choice you have is to hit whatever is in the road, or run into a tree. What would you do if a dog is in your path? What would do if a child is in your path?

Think about those situations as we watch, "The Heart of the Matter." [Play video]

What would you do in the final scene of the video if the little girl was in the roadway? What is the "right" or correct answer to that scene? Guess what--there is no "right" answer! Just because the vast majority of us in this room would try to make a more drastic attempt to miss the little girl in that scene, even if it meant hitting a tree, that does not mean our choice is the "right" answer. I know people who would rather hit a tree instead of running over the dog. Is that response "wrong"? No--if someone wants to hit a tree instead of running over a dog, that is their business. But, if I ask that person if they would make the same choice if their family were in the car with them, it might change their response. The point is there is no one "right" or correct answer to the final scene.

You will notice that I never ask the question, "Do animals have rights?" I cringe whenever I hear an agriculturist make a public statement like, "Animals have no rights!" That is one of the least prudent statements anyone can make. The general public (our customers) would not all agree to the statement that animals have no rights.

Ask a room full of people to check which of the following statements they most agree with:

t Animals have the right to be treated humanely.

t Animals have no rights, but humans have an obligation to treat them humanely.

Believe it or not, about half of the people will choose the first statement and half the people will choose the second statement. Nearly everyone in the room means the same thing, but they are using the word "rights" in different ways. So when you see results of surveys that say a certain percentage of the public believes in animal rights, this is what is probably happening--a misuse of the term "rights."

It makes no difference if the room is filled with agriculturists or urban consumers-- the results are many times the same. No matter the audience, statements such as, "Animals have no rights" can very well alienate half of the audience right off the bat.

Perhaps this would be a more prudent public statement to make: The vast majority of agriculturists, as well as the vast majority of the general public, believe in the responsible and compassionate use of animals by humans, for the betterment of our society.

That brings me to the major crux of the "Heart of the Matter" video. Hopefully you now understand the difference between the popular conception of "animal rights" and "animal welfare." And hopefully you now understand the difference between the philosophical concepts of "rights-based" and utilitarian-based thinking. The bottom line is, that in everything our society does we weigh the protection of individual rights against what is best for the majority. The debate comes when we try to decide where the line is drawn in each case. Even hard line "rights-based" philosophers will agree, that under certain conditions, it is acceptable to infringe on the rights of the individual for the betterment of the majority.

As the video points out, the majority of agricultural producers are responsible, compassionate utilitarians who believe in the responsible use of animals for the betterment of our society. I would claim that a responsible, compassionate utilitarian is a good thing to be.

I bring up this definition of the responsible, compassionate utilitarian because even though most producers fit this description, they have not had much practice verbalizing their thoughts and beliefs about their use of animals. Let me give you an example of what I mean. In my mind as a youngster growing up on a cattle ranch in west Texas, I knew in my head what a "flight zone " of a steer was; but I never knew it was called a flight zone until I saw the livestock handling information developed by Temple Grandin. That’s the same as a producer who knows down deep inside that he is a responsible, compassionate utilitarian, but he has never verbalized that belief.

One interesting observation about the "Heart of the Matter" video: some of the animal protection organization representatives who have seen the video have had a problem with the use of the extreme examples in the video, where you are offered only the choice of death or no death. They are uneasy about having to make those choices. The reason that some may be uneasy about those choices is because they must tell me what they believe. And when someone has to tell what they really believe, all of the facades are brought down. All of the hidden agendas are exposed. And that makes some people nervous.

The bottom line of this video, as with everything I do related to animal welfare issues, and consumer education about agriculture in general, is that I don’t try to lead the audience in agricultural pep rally cheers. I do not pound my fist on the table and call names. I don’t try to tell people what to think, I just try to help them to think about the complicated issues that affect agriculture.