Animal Rights Prof Says No Way to Consume Meat in Humane Way
I never fail to be amazed when I hear people—including well-known promoters of animal welfare—claim quite remarkably that animals do not have an interest in continued life; they just have an interest in not suffering. They do not care that we use them; they care only about how we use them.
As long as they have a reasonably painless life and a relatively painless death, they do not care if we consume them or products made from them. I have discussed this issue in a number of essays on this site (see, e.g., 1; 2; 3) and in my books and articles. It will be a central topic in my forthcoming book, The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation?, which I have co-authored with Professor Robert Garner and that will be published by Columbia University Press this fall.
On our video page, we have two videos from slaughterhouses. A significant number of visitors have viewed these videos and have written to us about them, particularly the video that does not show any slaughter. That video has obviously made an impact on many people and so I wanted to highlight it in a blog post.
The video shows two cows waiting in a chute to be led into the abattoir. An employee comes out and uses an electric prod to get the first cow to enter the abattoir. The second cow remains behind the door that has closed. She is clearly terrified. She knows that she is in trouble and this is not simply a matter of “instinct” (I do not even know what that means.) She is desperately looking for a way to get out of the chute. She may not have the same sorts of thoughts that beings who, like us, use symbolic communication, but it is clear that she has some equivalent sort of cognition. To say that she does not have a sense of having a life is beyond absurdity.
I find this video to be profoundly tragic on many levels. Watch it and then ask yourself whether animal organizations should be investing their time and your resources in trying to design “better” slaughterhouses or promoting “happy” meat, or whether we should all commit ourselves to veganism and to clear, unequivocal, nonviolent vegan education.
The video is apparently from a French slaughterhouse. But it does not really matter. All slaughterhouses are places of hell and unspeakable violence against the vulnerable. Never believe that such a place can ever be described as “humane” except by someone who is very deeply confused about fundamental issues of morality.
Someone who saw this video wrote to me and said the following:
I am a vegetarian but have found it difficult to transition to veganism. My two weaknesses: ice cream and good Cheshire cheese. I watched this video. I looked into her eyes and I answered the question that you asked on your video page: “Is there anything that you want to eat that badly?” The answer was clear to me in a way it never was before. I am now a vegan. I also recognised that all of the suffering and death that is going on is not because of what “they” are doing but because of what “we” demand. You are right to say that “the people who are ultimately responsible are not those who own and operate the slaughterhouses; those who consume meat and animal products, who create the demand, bear the ultimate moral responsibility.”
Go vegan. Educate others in creative, nonviolent ways about veganism.
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Since there's no way to stay alive without consuming (i.e. harming and killing) other life forms, be they plant or animal, the only rational way out of this conundrum is to kill oneself so as to cause no more harm.
Sheesh, now I can't get that darned song from "Mash" out of my head...
Through early morning fog I see
visions of the things to be
the pains that are withheld for me
I realize and I can see...
[chorus]:
That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
and I can take or leave it if I please.
I try to find a way to make
all our little joys relate
without that ever-present hate
but now I know that it's too late, and...
[Chorus]
The game of life is hard to play
I'm gonna lose it anyway
The losing card I'll someday lay
so this is all I have to say.
[Chorus]
The only way to win is cheat
And lay it down before I'm beat
and to another give my seat
for that's the only painless feat.
[Chorus]
MASH
The sword of time will pierce our skins
It doesn't hurt when it begins
But as it works its way on in
The pain grows stronger...watch it grin, but...
[Chorus]
A brave man once requested me
to answer questions that are key
'is it to be or not to be'
and I replied 'oh why ask me?'
'Cause suicide is painless
it brings on many changes
and I can take or leave it if I please.
...and you can do the same thing if you choose.
There's a number of problems with vegans believing that they somehow eliminate animal suffering if they only eat cabbage and tofu.
First of all, the post by Desert Girl about the occasional field mouse being crushed by machinery illustrates the cognitive dissonance infecting many of the vegan community.
Typically, much of the food vegans consume is produced by agribusiness - i.e,, corporate farms run by DuPont, ADM, Monsanto, etc. These businesses work hand-in-hand with pesticide manufacturers like BASF, and, of course, Monsanto itself produces pesticides.
Giant agribusinesses displace and kill millions of animals every year to produce the cabbage and soy that vegans eat. The more militant of these vegan extremists want to mandate that we all eat as they do - just imagine the zillions more little critters that would be displaced, poisoned and killed if we followed their example.
After the agribusiness-produced food is grown - using millions of acre-feet of water taken from rivers and streams - further killing and harming fish and animals - it is then transported from the farm to markets. The transportation requires the use of petroleum, coal , natural gas, and/or electricity. The natural resources used to produce this energy for transportation also come from places that, to produce this energy, displace and kill millions more animals and fish every year.
The toxic runoff from growing all this food kills countless animals and fish every year. In fact, there is a dead zone encompassing 6-7 thousand square miles in the Gulf of Mexico from this runoff..
These same vegans live in houses in cities and towns that also displace animals. Wildlife vs human encounters rise every year, with millions of deer alone being killed by automobiles in and round these towns and cities.
The vegans post to vegan websites using computers which use power, and are made from metals that are mined, further displacing and killing animals.
I'm quite sure that few people want any animal to suffer to become food. But the simple fact is, our mere existence causes death and suffering of animals.
In order to diminish their hypocrisy, vegans should at least grow all their own food; however, that alone isn't enough to stop the suffering of the animals that will be killed and displaced as a result of their very existence.
I would prefer to kill everything I eat, but I can't afford to do so. At least when I kill an animal I have hunted, the animal isn't in a chute on the way to slaughter, or being crushed by farm machinery or poised by agribusiness in order to produce a cabbage for a vegan.
There's a lot of misplaced blame and action by animal rights activists causing more harm than good. I suggest that these activists visit a free-range chicken farm sometime, and see the difference between free-range chickens and caged hens. The free-range chickens tear each other up and have more health problems. There was a good article about that a while back in The Arizona Republic Newspaper by a columnist who started out believing that free-range chickens were happier, healthier and produced more and healthier eggs. Hickman Farms, a local Arizona egg producer, contributed to both sides of the argument, since they produce both free-range and caged eggs, so that vegans can criticize people who consume both kinds.
In sum, gentle vegans, your very existence on this planet cannot help but cause innocent animals pain and suffering.
And for all you soy eaters - do a Google search for "Soy Dangers" to see where your "natural" food comes from, how it's manufactured, and you will understand why many soy-eating people in health food stores, carefully and self-righteously checking labels to make sure there are no animal by-products in their potential purchases, look like walking cadavers.
You'll also begin to understand why some vegans are so incontrovertibly wacky; it's most likely caused by the combo of their heavy metal poisoning, particularly aluminum from the processing of soy protein isolate, and an almost certain vitamin B12 deficiency, which causes clinical dementia and blindness.
I used to be a vegetarian until I decided that PETA stands for People Eating Tasty Animals. As to fruits feeling pain, they probably don't. They do bleed. Its called juice. Actually, one can go very far by intellectualizing the arguments. Let's all be stupid and do what we feel is right for us, as long as we don't violate the rights of other HUMAN BEINGS. Do animals have rights? In most countries they do. Some people have strong moral feelings about animals. I, for one, could not eat my dog under almost all circumstances. However, were I abandoned on a sand bar devoid of life, with him, he would definitely look quite tasty after a while. There are also circumstances in history where people who were not normally cannibals ate other people. Some have happened in recent times. Lets all be friends now, and I will think of my vegetarian and vegan friends the next time I have some Tyson or Perdue chicken (not processed with Arsenic).
When I was in school, I learned that there was the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom. If humans are not animals , then does that mean we are plants?
So many comments infer that vegans consume more plants than meat -eaters when the opposite is true. A plant-based population consumes less plants than a meat-eating one does because meat-eating populations most feed plant crops to the animals they are farming, which far outnumber the humans who consume them.
Here in the US, we raise and slaughter 12 billion land animals every year to feed 300 million people. If the 300 million people in the US ate a plant-based diet instead, we would only need to grow crops (plants) needed to feed 300 million people rather than 12 billion land animals.
If one cares about the welfare of plants, then they should consume less of them by going vegan.
I used to work in a swift pig plant. they electrocute pigs by hitting them with charged paddles,then they cut their throats. while they are still thrashing around they hoist them up and dip them in boiling water. then while the pigs are struggling they start the dissembly process! I grew up on a farm. at least we killed the animals before we butchered them. people join peta but they eat meat . if you love animals you should not eat meat! your not following your beliefs when you cause animals to be tortured and die.
Spot on Jack Attack!
Seriously folks, consider the possibility that when eating vegetables they feel pain. Is that humane? We know that eating raw, organic fruit puts significant numbers of microscopic organisms at risk of facing a tortuous death from our stomach acids. HCl burns like . . . well you know. Every breath you take sucks in more at risk organisms. If they are sentient, imagine their horror as they go up your nose or through your throat through dark tunnels of bronchi and bronchioles. Gad! Why can't you just stop being so cruel and just die!
Hi Rashi. Funny joke, but is this your excuse for violence? You don't really think that lettuces, paw paws, and organisms feel pain do you?
Great perspective. There's a natural order to things, and humans are in the top spot. As an agriculturist, I can attest that we do everything possible to keep our animals comfortable, stress-free and productive until their timely ends. When a cow becomes sentient enough to invent and employ a device that protects her from captive-bolt stunning, I'll think twice about eating her. Until then ... I'll treat her with care while she's alive, euthanize her humanely at harvest time and enjoy the fruits of her "labors" with a little horseradish.