Among the factors that make itdifficult to arouse public
concernaboutanimalsperhapsthehardesttoovercomeisthe
assumption that “human beings come first” and that any
problemabout animalscannot be comparable,as a serious
moralorpoliticalissue,toproblemsabouthumans.Anumber
ofthingscanbesaidaboutthisassumption.First,itisinitself
an indicationof speciesism.How cananyonewhohasnot
madeathorough studyofthetopicpossiblyknowthatthe
problemis lessseriousthanproblemsof humansuffering?
Onecanclaimtoknowthisonlyifoneassumesthatanimals
reallydonotmatter,andthathowevermuchtheysuffer,their
suffering is less important than the suffering of
humans.Butpainispain,andtheimportanceofpreventing
unnecessarypainandsufferingdoesnotdiminishbecausethe
beingthatsuffersisnotamemberofourspecies.Whatwould
wethinkofsomeonewhosaidthat“whitescomefirst”and
thattherefore povertyinAfricadoes notpose asseriousa
problem as poverty in Europe?
Itistruethatmanyproblemsintheworlddeserveourtime
andenergy.Famineandpoverty,racism,warandthethreatof
nuclearannihilation,sexism,unemployment,preservationof
ourfragileenvironment—allaremajorissues,andwhocan
say which is the most important? Yet once we put aside
speciesistbiaseswecanseethattheoppressionofnonhumans
by humans ranks somewherealong with theseissues. The
sufferingthatweinflictonnonhumanbeingscanbeextreme,
andthenumbersinvolvedaregigantic:morethan 100 million
pigs,cattle,andsheepgothroughtheprocessesdescribedin
Chapter 3 eachyear,in theUnitedStatesalone; billionsof
chickens dothe same;and atleast 25 millionanimals are
experimented upon annually. If a thousand human beings
wereforcedtoundergothekindofteststhatanimalsundergo