Lee Hall (vegan) - A Life Committed to Animal-People Liberation, Part 1 of 2

Lee Hall (vegan) is a highly respected lawyer, environmental law specialist, writer, author, animal-people rights advocate, and public speaker. Lee was vice president of legal affairs at Friends of Animals, and has taught law at Rutgers University, New Jersey, and Widener University Delaware Law School in Delaware, United States.

“I thought, ‘Think of all the ways that I’ve used animals: for food, for entertainment, as pets.’ I decided, I made the commitment to cut them all out at once. And I’ve been doing it since 1983, so 39 years now.” “As a new vegan, I was working for an airline, as a freight and baggage handler. And it was the animals shipped in freight. This was always a horror for them.” Eventually, Lee could no longer bear to see the immense suffering of the animal-people, and made a momentous career decision. “It was Property Law. [The] very first case in law school taught us that the one who has the complete control over the animal first is the owner. It is a challenge - animal law.”

“Health is an element of veganism. But the vegan definition is much broader and much deeper than that because veganism, it’s a social movement. And veganism is based on the principle that human beings should live without exploiting other animals. So, it is a movement for respect and for understanding who other animals would be if we didn’t control them systematically, if we cared about them in the sense of respecting them.”

Lee Hall is the author of many publications and shared the inspiration for the 2016 book, “On Their Own Terms, Animal Liberation for the 21st Century.” Lee believes we must do more. “First of all, all conscious beings should be respected as persons. But human rights are not what they need. Animals really need liberation. And that is only meaningful if the land, the water, the air is respected for them and left untouched.” “Can we then focus on free-living animals and defending their liberty?”