Do animal liberationists support violence?
Those who have compassion for non-human animals categorically abhor violence. They abhor the violence perpetrated against billions of animals every year, abhor the torture and killing, the imprisonment and exploitation carried out against beings condemned only because they belong to a particular species. Increasingly, activists are defending the right of these suffering animals to the use of self-defense in fighting back against those who torture and kill them for profit or fun. If an animal abuser will not stop hurting innocent animals when asked, if she will not stop when the fallacy of their motives is explained to them, that where is the moral wrong in forcing that person to stop the unwarranted violence? The term “extensional self-defense” has recently been coined to refer to humans who stand up for animals and stop their suffering, using in the words of Malcolm X, “any means necessary”.
