Is there really any conflict between human rights and animal rights?
I don’t think so. Only if we regard exploiting, breeding, and killing of animals as our right do we limit our rights by granting animals rights. We used to think that allowing women to have rights would infringe on our rights as men. Perhaps it does, but we are a better society for it.
Rights are only justified as long as what we are doing does not cause any harm or suffering.
Check out parts 1-4 here.
Argument: “…stop worrying about animals, when there are tons of hungry PEOPLE out there!! PEOPLE!”
Response: Really? No, seriously. Is this real?
I’m kidding, of course; if you’ve been vegan or an activist for any period of time you’ve probably heard this comment or some variety of it (depending on what the tragedy du jour is on the news) more times than you can count. I’ve always found it a little confusing, as if compassion is something we only have a limited amount of. In reality, I’ve found that a vegan lifestyle dramatically changes the way one looks at the world. I know that I never cared about Fair Trade chocolate and coffee or avoiding sweatshop labour before I started to learn about the suffering of animals. It just sort of opened up a world of compassion for me.
True, we do only have a certain number of hours in the day, and some of us choose to spend those hours volunteering to help animals. Others–and I speak of people who I know personally–volunteer not only to help animals, but with the elderly, at soup kitchens, and against human rights abuses. In fact , over the last 5 or 6 years I’ve discovered that vegans tend to be more concerned about suffering of all types than the general population.
Check out this related quote from Peter Singer, in which he discusses far more eloquently than I ever could the “humans come first” phenomenon:
Among the factors that make it difficult to arouse public concern about animals, perhaps the hardest to overcome is the assumption that “human beings come first” and that any problem about animals cannot be comparable, as a serious moral or political issue, to the problems about humans. A number of things can be said about this assumption.
First, it is in itself an indication of speciesism. … One can claim to know this only if one assumes that animals really do not matter, and that however much they suffer, their suffering is less important than the suffering of humans. But pain is pain, and the importance of preventing unnecessary pain and suffering does not diminish because the being that suffers is not a member of our species. What would we think of someone who said that “whites come first” and that therefore poverty in Africa does not pose as serious a problem as poverty in Europe?
If you feel like it, read more about this issue at Vegan Outreach.
And check out these links which discuss the connection between the consumption of animal products and world hunger.
I’ve been wondering a lot lately about people who say that they love animals and respect them, but then eat them.
How does this work? Are they just using these words to mean something other than what I think they mean?
Love would seem to indicate that they care at least as much for the animal’s life and happiness as they do their own. If I say that I love my wife, I am not getting ready to bash her in the back of the head with a hammer. But if I’m saying I love my rabbits – I could mean this?
What does respect mean if it’s said about a relationship of exploitation, ending in death? And what sort of respect does it show to use all parts of an animal? Would I be happy to be respected by someone who’s going to kill me, as long as all of me gets used?
I think I would pass on this sort of respect. And this sort of love.
What it reminds me of is an abusive relationship, where the abuser claims to love the abused – and he’s only doing what he does out of love, right?
No matter how “nice” the animal’s life was, he will be betrayed, slaughtered, dismembered, and eaten. This really just shows that all the “love” and “respect” are a simple, deluded lie.
