Majority of Americans find fur “morally acceptable” : Gallup. FCUSA analysis.

FUR COMMISSION USA COMMENTARY, JULY 30, 2011

Majority of Americans Find Fur “Morally Acceptable” : Gallup

By Simon Ward, Communications Director, FCUSA

According to Gallup’s latest “moral acceptability” poll, published May 31, the majority of Americans continue to accept “Buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur,” though that majority dipped to 56% from 60% in the last year.

Since the poll began in 2001, fur’s highest acceptability rating was 64% in 2005, and its lowest 54% in 2008.

Of the remaining pollees this year, 39% believed fur clothing was “morally wrong”, 3% said it “depends on situation”, 1% said it is “not a moral issue”, and 2% had “no opinion”. Given that pollees in the last three categories are probably open to wearing fur, at least in the right “situation”, it can reasonably be argued that the acceptability rating of fur is actually 62%.

Another positive for fur to come out of this year’s poll is found in the breakdown by age brackets (18-34, 35-54, 55+). Conventional wisdom has always been that animal rights propaganda against fur resonates more with young and impressionable people than with their elders. Yet this year’s poll finds a variation in fur’s acceptability of just 2% across all ages. This suggests that the industry’s message promoting fur as an environment-friendly clothing choice is reaching all generations equally, or perhaps that today’s youth are simply more savvy about environmental issues.

From a purely business perspective, also, equal acceptability across the generations is a plus, since it means a stable consumer base for years to come.

Other Animal Issues

Among the 17 issues polled this year, two others pertained to animals: “Cloning animals” and “Medical testing on animals”.

Cloning of animals has a low acceptability rating of just 32%, with 62% opposing it, and 6% “other”. Even so, it is far ahead of “Cloning humans”, considered acceptable by just 12%.

Of more relevance to the fur industry and others in animal agriculture is that other perennial target of animal rights propaganda, medical testing on animals.

Generally speaking, Gallup’s polls have shown the approval rating of medical testing to closely mirror that of fur. In this year’s poll, 55% found it morally acceptable (down the same 4% as fur), 38% morally wrong, and 7% “other”.

But while fur has held its own over the last decade, the acceptability of medical testing has actually fallen 10%, and is now at its lowest level since polling began. It has also fallen behind fur for the last three years, which is surprising given the relationship between society’s morals and its needs.

Warm clothing is easy to justify, and can even be a life-or-death choice, but steadily falling costs (to the consumer, not the environment) of petrochemical synthetics have reduced society’s sense of absolute need for natural fibers like fur. Medical testing on animals, in contrast, addresses our most fundamental need of all: staying alive and healthy. Yes, animals are sacrificed, but most people believe the end justifies the means.

Why, then, is fur acceptable to more people?

Looking again at the age brackets in Gallup’s poll, we find a very different story than that for fur.

Approval of medical testing is a strong 61% in the 55+ age bracket. But in the 35-54 bracket, it is down to 57%, and in the 18-34 bracket, it is just 47%.

Young people generally have less experience of illness or disease than older people, and thus might place less importance on medical testing. But considering something unimportant is not a reason to call it immoral. Medical testing on animals only becomes immoral when there is no need, which is exactly what the animal rights movement has been arguing for years. All testing of drugs and surgical procedures can now be simulated on computers, they say.

The research community has been vigorously fighting this misinformation campaign, but Gallup’s poll suggests young people may still be buying into the animal rights propaganda.

For the fur industry, meanwhile, the task ahead is to raise the level of fur’s “moral acceptability” into the 70+ percentile range, at which point Gallup will hopefully remove it from the poll altogether.