Nonhuman animals are discriminated against on the grounds of species. This species prejudice is known as "speciesism," and is responsible for our maintaining animal slavery.

Any sentient being has an interest in living and in not being used as a tool for the purposes of others. That interest should not be ignored because animals are not humans. The life of each sentient being is important to that being, and deserves respect.

The intelligence of animals is irrelevant to the question of assigning them moral consideration. It is also irrelevant whether animals are useful to humans or they are capable of reciprocal moral relationships with humans. What they need most is for us to recognize that we have an obligation that we owe to them not to treat them as our resources or tools.

In practice, that means a simpler idea than what it seems. It means that we should abolish and not reform. And we must apply the abolicionist message to our lives (veganism). It eliminates suffering by acting directly upon the cause that generates it in the first place. It is much more efficient and practical that any welfare reform, which does not question the human domination over other beings.

Anima’s online Bibliography:
Slavery, Movements and Liberation.