The Animal Rights Show

In the first months of 2020, the routines of Planet Earth were somewhat disrupted by the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic. Since normal is violent, C-19 disturbed what was normal for humans, for example, willfully damaging the environment with perpetual international transport.

We might think this rather a good thing. Fairly early on in the pandemic, I remember sitting in the garden at the vegan-run Back into Daylight animal sanctuary in Ireland when we noticed how clear and vivid the sky above the sanctuary was.

Another effect of the pandemic, amongst tens of thousands of things, was the end of vegan street outreach which, in the case of The Vegan Information Project and Vegan Education on the Go in Dublin was our regular activities, three times a week for 11-12 hours per week.

When the strict lockdowns associated with the pandemic began, animal advocates, like many others such as musicians, began to concentrate on online events such as conferences and what was to become virtually daily Zoom events.

And so, the barely visible and audible pilot of “The Animal Rights Show with Jeremy and Roger” was recorded on March 20th 2020, and released on the 26th. By April 8th, we had improved the technology, had brand new fancy pants into and outro videos to top and tail the shows, and we were good to go. Jeremy Hess and I wanted to use The Animal Rights Show to try to explore the idea of rights-based animal rights, especially the ideas associated with Tom Regan the author of The Case for Animal Rights in 1983 and numerous other related books, the last being Empty Cages: Facing the Challenge of Animal Rights in 2004.

Due to a feature called “Common ground,” we soon realised that we needed to expand the number of people involved in the show, so the “with Jeremy and Roger” part of the title just had to go, leaving The Animal Rights Show to expand and flourish. To date there have been more than 110 shows (or show clips) and the most settled team has been comprised of Wendy McGovern, Nella Giatrakou and I, with special mentions going to Jeremy Hess, Tom Gale-Batton, and Brad George. The current show format was set by October 2020 with a switch from Zoom to the StreamYard platform. Keeping to the main aim of the show to explore rights-based animal rights, the first show in this format addressed the question of whether animal rights (as a philosophical idea) is too complicated for the social movement often bearing that name.

One of the greatest pleasures of The Animal Rights Show are the episodes when we have either guest panelists or guest presenters. These have included great contributions from people such as

Carol J. Adams, who gave us an updated version of her Pornography of “Meat” slideshow, Louise Wallis, who devised World Vegan Day, pattrice jones, Laura Schleifer, Pamela Nova, and a lengthy “grassroots activist series.”

By Dr. Roger Yates Co-founder of The Animal Rights Show & The Vegan Information Project