A July 14 TIME article chronicles the animal rights movement's progression into mainstream culture in both the U.S. and abroad. Citing the passage of California's Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act - "Proposition 2" - in 2008 and the bill just signed by Governor Schwarzenegger prohibiting the sale of eggs from battery-caged hens, journalist Adam Cohen asserts that a "strong level of popular support" is behind the rapid growth and momentum of today's animal rights movement.Cohen also cites the recent settlement between the Ohio Farm Bureau and The Humane Society of the United States, the national movement to limit the chaining of dogs outdoors and Hawaii's proposed ban on the sale of foie gras as further evidence that animal rights in the U.S. is on the upswing.
Cohen observes that the European Union is still far ahead of the U.S. in recognizing animal rights, and that the movement there continues to gain ground. The Spanish parliament, for example, passed a resolution two years ago urging that chimpanzees, gorillas and other nonhuman primates have the right not to be used in medical experiments and circuses. Switzerland has a 160-page animal-rights law with some of the world's stiffest rules for the treatment of animals, and in Zurich, animals are afforded legal representation.
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