The animals are watching. And for the first time in history, we are beginning to look back.
Conversely, welfare improvements often pave the ideological road for rights. Once a society accepts that a pig has a freedom to express normal behavior (rooting in dirt), it becomes harder to justify confining that pig in a gestation crate. Each welfare concession acknowledges a right implicitly. The animals are watching
The rights position is absolutist. If an animal has a right to life, then killing it for food is wrong, regardless of how "humanely" it was raised. If an animal has a right to bodily autonomy, then using it for biomedical testing is a violation—even if the research might cure human disease. The animals are watching