Like all vegans, they can not eat meat or other animal products such as eggs, milk and honey, and also no butter, milk chocolate, milk ice cream and egg noodles for example. However, there are many other rules.
Whether the cow is kept in intensive livestock farming or in a largely organic farm is irrelevant for animal rights activists. They reject any animal use.
The founder of modern animal ethics is the Australian philosopher Peter Singer, who developed the conceptual, philosophical and political foundations of the animal rights movement with his books “Animal Liberation” (1975) and “Practical Ethics” (1984).
The world’s most famous and influential organization is PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), but there are countless smaller and larger ones dedicated to the animal rights.
PETA spokesmen openly proclaim that they are advocating a new antihumane ethic. “Humans have grown like a cancer. We’re the biggest blight on the face of the earth”, said PETA founder and chairman Ingrid Newkirk.
Two PETA employees were detained in the US state of North Carolina in 2005 after disposing 80 animal carcasses in a trash container. They were accused, among other things, of cruelty to animals, but were released at the end of the trial.
