The pioneers of the animal rights movement were idealists. They had nothing to gain for themselves except the satisfaction of having done what they felt they should. As the movement grew, differences were bound to emerge. Rudacille documents the rivalries, disagreements and dissension that cropped up almost from the very beginning, between Anna Kingsford and Frances Powers Cobbe or the several groups in the United States. These are based as much on a clash of personalities as on conflicting views and opposed strategies and methods.
Idealism hardens into ideology, and violence, the handmaiden of ideology, is never far behind.
In the beginning Anna Kingsford only attempted spiritual or psychic murder on her most despicable opponent but, in more recent times, scientists have been harassed and threatened. There has also been an attempted bombing, for which Fran Stephanie Trutt went to jail in the 1980s. Animal rights groups have not only come under surveillance by big corporations, but attempts have been made to discredit them totally. Still, it is difficult not to be dismayed by the perversity of defending the right to life and protection from suffering, as far as the animals are concerned, and readiness to inflict the same cruelty on human beings. It is like pro-lifers attempting to kill living people to defend the right to life of a fetus.