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Abstract:

In Flanders (Belgium) there is no reference to animal rights, or even sentience, in the constitution, nor in the Animal Welfare Act. Recently, the Belgian (Federal) government introduced a third category in the Civil Code, specifically aimed to grant animals a special status, somewhere between goods and humans. In this paper, we will show there is a great support among the public for such addition, and probably more (as on average 87% indicates that they would support including animal rights in the Constitution). Furthermore, we will analyse the demographic and other factors influencing the opinion of the Flemish public with regard to animal welfare and animal rights. The study is based on a sample of 871 respondents of different ages, educational level, and rural/urban background. Unsurprisingly, support for animal rights is stronger with women (who also gave notably more extreme scores) and younger people, but more than half of the respondents oppose animal experimentation (with a striking gender difference with women being three times less supportive) and the use of animals for entertainment. Also, half of them support stronger measures against commercial dog breeding, consider agricultural animals as important as pets, find animal lives as important as human lives, and believe that animals can suffer in the same way as humans. We will also show that these beliefs are not always compatible with the stated lifestyles of the respondents. Indeed, 63% identified as omnivores, and an additional 23% as flexitarians. This was certainly apparent when omnivores gave high (average) scores to the importance of animal lives and suffering. This supports the notion of a psychological disconnection between animals and meat among the consumers. Although the sequence cannot be derived from this study, the data supports the hypothesis that people become flexitarians first, before moving on to vegetarianism, and finally to veganism, based on age, time spent within the lifestyles, and average scores on different statements.