Choices
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Alright, I’m going to wade into some pretty controversial waters here. Be prepared.
Someone recently sent me this message:
“I bet your [sic] pro-choice as well and you dont [sic] see any problem with doctors chopping up babies in the womb, nope, you only care about the animals.”
My standard response is, “I don’t eat babies, either. I’m vegan and I abstain from consuming flesh.”
It’s true that I’m pro-choice. But it’s untrue that I “only care about the animals.” I care deeply about human beings. Not only for the ones in my family, but also for humankind in general.
I could make the argument that caring for animals helps foster a more compassionate community that cares for all sentient beings in need, like the Best Friends motto: “A better world through kindness to animals.” In fact, I volunteered at Noah’s Animal House, an animal shelter for the pets of women and children in crisis. Because 85% of persons sheltered at domestic violence facilities have experienced abuse to a pet, at least 20% of domestic violence survivors delayed leaving their abusive relationship because they could not bring their animals to the shelter with them, and because there is a direct correlation between spousal, child, and animal abuse: helping animals IS helping people.
I could make an argument about how being pro-choice is caring for pregnant women by providing them with the right to physical autonomy and the right to safe medical procedures. I could make the argument that when abortion is legal, fewer women die from abortion. I could argue that anti-choice legislation is not an effective means of protecting women and babies. I could argue that pregnant women need more choices, not fewer, including the option to reproduce without educational, career, or social barriers.
I could argue the difference between politics and ethics. Just because I think something should be legal doesn’t mean I think it’s ethical. Truthfully, I don’t subscribe to the notion that fetuses are merely blobs of flesh. I don’t think life begins at birth rather than conception. I do think abortion is ethically problematic. And I don’t think I’d have an abortion unless it was medically necessary.
I could talk about a moment in high school when we were told to dissect a pig fetus. I could recall those teenage feelings and how they cemented my commitment to animal rights. I could turn the accusation of hypocrisy around and argue that only a monster would sanction the killing of a pregnant sow and her babies for such a wholly unnecessary ritual as dissection in high school biology classes.
But I’m not going to make those arguments here.
This is the VEGAN soapbox, not the feminist soapbox. And while I personally see all rights movements as linked and therefore I oppose sexism as much as I oppose racism as much as I oppose speciesism, I think that whole discussion is better suited for a community like L.O.V.E.
The fact is, it doesn’t matter what my personal opinions are. It doesn’t matter if you think I’m hypocritical for supporting both Planned Parenthood and PETA. What matters is you and your choices. If you think it’s wrong to kill needlessly then you MUST go vegan.
If you believe veganism is incompatible with a pro-choice perspective, fine, but that’s not a valid reason to eat animals. If you think that all life should be protected and you extend that philosophy to human fetuses and to animals, you MUST go vegan.
My beliefs and my actions – whatever they may be – do not excuse your actions. You live your own life. You make your own choices.
I was luck because in my biology class, a decade plus some ago, my professor told everyone that had a moral issue with dissecting the pig that they did not have to participate, and that they would not be marked down as long as they knew the anatomy on the test. I didn’t, and I still got an “A.”
I admit I was still an omni at the time, but something about the situation just seemed particularly wrong to me.
I am pro-choice, but to me it makes no sense to be pro-life, but only when it applies to certain lives that could not survive outside the mother and which do not require also killing the mother simply so some kids can poke around with their baby.
The other issue is *choice*. No one asked the sow if she wanted to have her baby taken and if they could kill her in the process, now did they?
Just my two-cents, though.
Thanks so much for the blog. Your blog and others like it really help me stay vegan.
I and most vegans aren’t vegan because we’re “pro-life” in some sort of abstract sense–after all, almost all of us kill plants as a result of our diet, right? We’re vegan because we oppose the way animals who are used by humans in various ways are treated. We oppose their being made to undergo pain and suffering and/or have their lives shortened purely for humans’ pleasure or convenience.
None of these considerations apply to a human zygote (newly fertilized egg), embryo, or early-term fetus. Although it is as alive as any plant, it literally has no nervous system to begin with and not enough of one to experience pain and suffering or have a will to survive for the first several weeks of pregnancy. I agree that an ethical dilemma develops as the pregnancy proceeds and nervous system development makes these things possible, but I don’t agree that there is anything ethically problematic about abortion in the early stages, before there is a developed nervous system.
Of course, anyone who criticizes vegans for being pro-choice but continues to use animal products is utterly hypocritical, considering that using animal products almost always results in animals suffering, whereas abortion can only cause suffering if the fetus has a well-developed nervous system. And the whole “but abortion takes a life” argument is ridiculous. Unless all someone eats is fruit, they have to take lives (plants at least) just to stay alive themselves.
This is a fact. All live births will-at some point in time(one second later or a hundred years later) end in death. All conceptions will NOT end in birth. It’s not the same.
There is no way to convince people like the quoted commenter because he/she begins on the assumption that we are challenging, without actually realizing it: Why don’t you care about humans? You only care about stupid animals. Our point relates back to suffering, of course, however, this would be lost on this commenter as he/she simply appeals to the prejudice that we are criticizing. It’s a no win situation – “Danger Will Robinson, danger!,” is what I say. Laugh and walk away.
~ Recent blog post: Compassion ~
This is a connection that could be argued forever!
I am willing to bet that this commenter is not vegan, yet claims to be pro-life. I am pro-life and it drives me insane that most pro-lifers put a stipulation on the end of their beliefs: Pro-life when it is an unborn child, but not when it is an animal. And don’t even get me started on the fact that Republicans want the babies to be born to mothers that can’t afford them, but see no need to take care of them financially through welfare programs.