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Most legal systems worldwide are built on a welfare model. Animal cruelty laws, anti-cockfighting statutes, and humane slaughter acts reflect welfare thinking. However, rights-based arguments have influenced major changes:

Public opinion often blends the two: Most people accept eating meat but oppose extreme confinement (welfare), while a growing minority adopt veganism (rights).

Unlike welfare, which is pragmatic, rights are deontological (duty-based). Thinkers like Peter Singer, while technically a utilitarian (welfarist), bridges the gap with his concept of speciesism—a prejudice similar to racism or sexism that grants greater moral weight to the interests of one's own species. For true rights advocates, using an animal for a hamburger or a handbag is morally equivalent to using a human with a severe cognitive disability for the same purpose. monica mattos the infamous horse scene bestiality

The most prominent modern voice for this view is legal scholar Gary Francione, who argues that the animal welfare movement is a failure because it regulates exploitation rather than abolishes it. Francione coined the term "vegan abolitionism." He posits that:

In reality, most activists and legislators occupy a messy middle ground known as New Welfarism. This pragmatic approach uses welfare reforms as a strategy to achieve rights-based goals. Most legal systems worldwide are built on a welfare model

The logic is simple: You change society incrementally. For example:

Even staunch abolitionists recognize that asking a society that has eaten meat for 2.5 million years to go vegan overnight is unrealistic. Welfare reforms save lives now, even if they don't end the system. Public opinion often blends the two: Most people

The tension between welfare and rights is most visible in specific practical arenas.