As someone who is already vegan and who is interested in animal rights advocacy, you may have heard about the abolitionist approach developed by Professor Gary Francione and adopted by the International Vegan Association and other groups. If you are already a committed abolitionist, you might want to look at our resources for abolitionist educators. But if you are not yet an abolitionist, we have some content that we would like you to consider.

First, please consider Gary Francione’s short article which explains and defends the abolitionist approach. (For a fuller defense, you should consider reading Francione’s many books.) Second, please take a look at our position paper on abolitionism. This paper concisely offers the IVA’s reasons for adopting the abolitionist approach, and it is intended to complement Professor Francione’s research.

Even after understanding what abolitionism is and why the IVA is committed to the abolitionist approach, you might still wonder what abolitionists do. To learn more about what we and other abolitionists do, please see our position paper on activism. There are further position papers available from our resources page that go into further detail about what it means to be an abolitionist vegan, and you will find other useful resources, like our Vegan Starter Kit, full-color printed copies of which you can request for distribution.

Finally, we hope that you will contact us by email or phone at +1 (617) 982-2891 to speak to us about abolitionism. Whether it’s to learn more about our recurring animal rights reading group or to ask questions about anything you find on our site, or on our social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, we are happy to provide answers. And if you have objections or criticism, we’d love to hear from you, too. We have found that almost any disagreement can be settled by one-on-one discussion. So whether you have thoughts, questions, objections or criticisms, we encourage you to reach out to us and begin a conversation.