Platform - Green Party US Section III. Ecological Sustainability K. Ethical Treatment Of Animals Cruelty to animals is repugnant and criminal.
The mark of a humane and civilized society lies in how we treat the least protected among us.
To extend rights to other sentient, living beings is our responsibility and a mark of our place among all of creation.
We call for an intelligent, compassionate approach to the treatment of animals.
We reject the belief that our species is the center of creation, and that other life forms exist only for our use and enjoyment.
Our species does not have the right to exploit and inflict violence on other creatures simply because we have the desire and power to do so.
Our ethic upholds not only the value of biological diversity and the integrity and continuity of species, but also the value of individual lives and the interest of individual animals.
The Green Party advocates humane treatment of animals with the following policies:
- Redirect the funds that are disbursed annually by the National Institutes of Health away from animal experiments and more towards direct health care, preventive medicine, and biomedical research using non-animal procedures such as clinical, epidemiological, and cell culture research. Expand the Animal Welfare Act to include rats, mice, and birds.
- Phase out the use of animals for consumer product testing, tobacco and alcohol testing, psychological testing, classroom demonstrations and dissections, weapons development and other military programs.
- Mandate clear labeling of products to tell whether or not they have been tested on animals and if they contain any animal products or by-products.
- Establish procedures to develop greater public scrutiny of all animal research.
These should include the welfare of laboratory animals, and a halt to wasteful public funding of unnecessary research such as duplicative experiments.
- End the abuse of animals, including farm animals, and strengthen our enforcement of existing laws.
- Ban the sale of exotic or endangered animals, as well as the use and sale of goods produced from them.
- Prohibit large scale commercial breeding facilities, such as "puppy mills," because of the massive suffering, overpopulation, and ill health such facilities produce.
- Subsidize spay and neuter clinics to combat the ever-worsening pet overpopulation problem that results in the killing of millions of animals every year.
Where unwanted companion animals are being killed in shelters, we advocate mandatory spay and neuter laws.
- Ban the exploitation, abuse, and neglect of animals in entertainment and sports.
- Oppose captivity of cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises) for entertainment and/or commercial profit.
End the capture and exploitation of cetaceans for entertainment purposes in marine parks and aquariums and captive breeding programs to maintain entertainment stock.
Support funding for the development of sanctuaries for cetaceans which may be transitional or permanent depending on the evaluation of the cetaceans involved.
- Encourage a plant-based diet to reduce methane gas emissions that contribute to climate change, reduce animal suffering, reduce animal waste runoff in waterways, reduce animal consumption of grain that could feed the impoverished, and for improved health, among other reasons.
- Prohibit the practice of tethering domesticated animals outdoors in extreme weather, as well as leaving domesticated animals outdoors during such weather without adequate shelter.
Extreme weather includes but is not limited to below freezing temperatures, temperatures above 85℉ (30℃), hurricanes, thunderstorms, and tornados.
- Ban the sale, production, import, and export of "foie gras" and any other products that are the result of force feeding.
- Ban the sale, production, import and export of animal furs.
- Place an immediate ban on the practice of declawing, which is immensely harmful and traumatic surgery which involves the amputation of part of an animal's limbs.
Declawing can have health determinants including painful paws, infection, and tissue death as well as behavioral issues such as aggression and/or improper soiling.
- Legalize and fund the practice of trap and release (TNR) of feral, domesticated animals for the purpose of spay and neutering by programs run by licensed veterinarians at any public or private animal shelter, releasing agency, hospital, or clinic.
- Ban the practice of horse racing, greyhound racing, pig racing, and all other situations where animals are commercially raced. Place an immediate ban on the use of whips in horse racing and steeplechase.
- Ban the use of animals in circuses and call for their re-homing to their natural habitats where possible, otherwise to conservational zoos or sanctuaries.
- Require that all zoos and private collections of non-domesticated animals must be for the purposes of conservation and rehabilitation or providing sanctuary for those animals unable to be released back into their natural habitat.
- Guarantee that public buildings that serve food such as schools, jails and hospitals participate in the practice of "Green Monday" – where all foods served on one day of the week does not contain animal products and byproducts – to provide ethical, healthier, and climate friendly meals one day out of each week.