It’s Mariann’s 76th birthday, and instead of cake, she’s serving up a surprisingly coherent framework for moving the animal rights movement forward — one that borrows from the Founding Fathers, sidesteps the usual vegan vs. welfarist cage match, and lands on a deceptively simple idea: animals deserve the right to pursue happiness, starting with the right to raise their own young.

The movement’s fragmentation problem: Welfare reformers, effective altruists, veganism advocates, the Non-human Rights Project, and the rescue world are all pulling for the same ultimate goal but using different tactics — this episode asks whether a shared incremental goal could work for all of them.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — for animals: Mariann makes the case that “life” and “liberty” may be too absolute to litigate right now, but “the pursuit of happiness” offers a legally and politically workable wedge.
The right to raise your own young: A concrete, science-backed example of a happiness right for at least some animals that most people intuitively understand — and one the factory farming industry structurally cannot provide.
Building a bigger tent: You don’t have to go vegan to agree that a mother cow should get to nurse her calf. That’s the point. Meet people where they are and let the thinking do its work.
Existential welfare revisited: The episode revisits Mariann’s “existential welfare” framework — finding reforms that sound reasonable to any normal person but would be industry-ending if taken seriously.

We are thrilled to expand the accessibility of our podcast by offering written transcripts of the interviews! Click here to read this episode's interview.

_____________________________________________

Thank you for listening to the Our Hen House podcast! If you enjoy our podcasts, believe in our mission to effectively mainstream the movement to end the exploitation of animals, find community and solace in our shows and resources, and would like to show your support for vegan indie media, please make a donation today.

Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcatcher, and don’t forget to leave a 5-star review!

Check out Our Hen House’s other podcasts: The Animal Law Podcast, The Teaching Jasmin How to Cook Vegan Podcast, and the Antiracism in Animal Advocacy Audio Series.

The Our Hen House theme song is written and performed by Michael Harren.