Does "Meatout Day" Help Animals?

For the last several years, an organization called the Farm Animal Rights Movement has organized an annual event called "Meatout" that calls for people to give up meat for one day, the first day of spring, and also organizes "Meatless Mondays." Other self-proclaimed animal rights organizations, including PETA, Vegan Outreach, Mercy For Animals, and several others also promote the event and are listed as supporters on the Meatout (www.meatout.org) home page, as are numerous celebrity promoters such as Alicia Silverstone and Ed Asner.

Undoubtedly the organizations and individuals involved in promoting Meatout believe that they are serving the cause of animal rights by doing so. But are they? What if anti-slavery activists had supported a promotional campaign in favor of slaveowners giving their slaves Sunday off? Or what if activists in the Civil Rights movement had promoted "Lynching-Free Wednesdays"?

Of course, neither of these movements did these things, and there's a good reason why: Nothing says "I don't take my ethical principles seriously" like advocating that others give up actions contrary to one's ethics one day a week--or, in the present case, give up ONE unethical behavior (eating meat) for one day per year. Animals are sentient beings who can experience pain and suffering just as humans can. Treating them as mere "things," as nothing more than property to be used for humans' pleasure and convenience, is not any more ethically justifiable on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday than it is on Monday. Using them as milk slaves, having them fight with each other, kidnapping them from the wild and putting them on exhibit to a curious public in cages, or other uses that revolve around our needs and desires and ignore theirs are no more ethically justifiable than killing them for their flesh. Anyone who is serious about the notion that nonhuman animals have the right to not be treated as "things" should not be promoting "Meatout" or "Meatless Mondays."