I feel shocked and upset. You may recall that I am working at the Dept of Agriculture as an intern. I've been loving it so far, but today I found out that they do animal testing here. A young professional I met is researching how much younger ostriches can be killed to save on grain. His aiming for 8 months rather than 14 months. Cows in the fields have holes in their sides through which the scientists can check their stomach content. I'm sure much more happens here as they have a whole animal experimentation section, but sensitive individuals try not to know things.
Yes, yes we may concole ourselves that we don't eat much meat or eat organic, but there is a lot of horrible things happening behind the scenes which we do not know. By eating meat we are condoning such practices. Like Julian Baggini said, these people (farmers, companies, the government) see animals as protein packages, not as living beings. Their mindset must be callous and aloof towards animals, otherwise how can they do these things?
Yes, people need to eat, but we can choose more humane options. It starts with taking animals more seriously and not choosing a veil of ignorance to justify our food preferences. I'm not entirely against livestock (although I find this name more and more offiensive) as mentioned in previous posts, but they should not be used for testing, they should not be killed for food. The animal's one and only life is worth more our pleasure gained in one meal. If some people's food security rests only on livestock, I'd like to suggest that they are infact highly vulnerable to food insecurity and bad health. There are healthy, more humane and more sustainable alternatives.
Read Stuart's blog below, where he describes the unjust scenario where we, humans are the "inferior" beings used for experimentation and food.
3 comments:
I think going behind a veil of ignorance might actually help! That means that people should imagine what type of society they would want if they had no idea what their position in society would be. If its possible they might end up being animals, they should be more sensitive about the possibility of being tested on or being eaten.
Yes, I see the veil of ignorance that Stuart describes, as a way to help people to develop empathy. It asks people to imagine what it would be like if they were an abused animal or a poor person, as in some of Stuart's other examples.
To imagine what others are going through requires some knowledge of their conditions as a start, which is what I'm asking people to have, then they can use their empathy to realise it's unjust as they wouldn't want to be that cow or chicken.
hi Sanisha. Sorry for my late reply. I must admit my ignorance - i don't know about the Gaxo Kline Smith cases. Thanks for pointing them out!
I do not agree in violent activisim. The whole point of the exercise is to prevent violence, not create it. Also I don't think it does anything for the cause as animal rights movements will be labelled as extreme and irrational. I think the only answer is education and development of compassion.
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