British Fur Ban “Morally and Scientifically Unjustified” Says New Economic ‘Think Tank’ Report

INTERNATIONAL FUR TRADE FEDERATION PRESS RELEASE, MARCH 27, 2000

British Fur Ban “Morally and Scientifically Unjustified” Says New Economic ‘Think Tank’ Report

THE FUR FARMING (PROHIBITION) BILL, currently before the British Parliament, opens up a new dimension to UK legislation – ‘public morality’, or an ethical policy – which a new report by the Institute of Economic Affairs describes as both ‘morally and scientifically unjustified’!

The 30,000-word IEA report ‘Fur and Freedom -in defence of the fur trade’ by journalist Richard North, critically evaluates the relationship between ethics and fur, and explodes “some of the myths” surrounding the fur trade. It maintains that arguments against the fur trade are spurious and would, if valid, rule out the trades in beef, pork, eggs and leather.

Of the public morality stance, North says: “This language is new, and seems necessary mostly because there are few serious justifications for picking out fur farming as particularly bad except perhaps, that large numbers of people profess themselves opposed to it. In other words, public ‘morality’ is now synonymous with public ‘opinion’.”

He maintains that “just because an activity is considered morally wrong by many does not justify a ban on that activity. In a pluralistic society such as Britain’s, Parliament should encourage toleration, subject to the caveat that people are not harmed. Farming and wearing fur harms nobody”.

North acknowledges that there are “profound animal welfare issues in the use of fur, as there are in any other animal use”. However, he points out: “Few consumers of bacon sandwiches would consider their activity to be as morally problematic as wearing fur and yet there are close parallels between them”.

A foreword to the report by Prof. Roger Scruton, a former lecturer at Birkbeck College, London and Boston University, Massachusetts, declares: “The decision that a trade should be criminalised, without proof of its immorality or any suggestion that it is socially divisive or environmentally destructive, and only because a pressure group has said so, is a novel departure in English government.”

Commissioned by the British Fur Trade Association, the report will be published this month (March), but can be accessed in full now on the Internet at: www.iea.org.uk/wpapers/fur.htm and is available for purchase fromwww.iea.org.uk/books/env16.htm.

For further information contact: International Fur Trade Federation, PO Box 318, Walton KT12 2WH, UK.