Why not just be a vegetarian?

Jessie is going to be publishing the following in the Journal, give her some feedback!

I am proud to say that I have now spent over a quarter of my life meat-free. Although I loved the taste of meat as a teenager, the decision to become vegetarian for ethical reasons was an easy one, a smart one, and one that I’ve never regretted.
However, after four and a half years, I began to have a nagging sensation that perhaps vegetarianism wasn’t the answer after all – indeed, to question whether it had any value at all. Finally, in November of last year, I gave up on being a vegetarian. Or perhaps I should say I moved forward: I became a vegan.
A vegan is a person who abstains from using any animal products. I don’t eat dairy, eggs, or honey, I don’t wear leather, silk, or wool, and I don’t use hygiene products that were tested on animals or that contain animal-derived ingredients. This may seem like a restrictive lifestyle, but within a week or two of my newfound veganism I went from asking “What will I eat?” to “What the hell took me so long?”
Our society encourages a skewed relationship with animals. Some, we take into our homes and treat as family members; others, we breed, exploit, and slaughter by the tens of billions every year, for no other reason than that they taste good. Like me, you may believe that lacto-ovo vegetarianism (a diet which abstains from meat but allows dairy products and eggs) is an acceptable personal solution. Unfortunately, the treatment of dairy cows and egg hens is no better, and in many cases, much worse than the treatment of animals exploited for their flesh; when they are “spent”, as the industry calls it, they are slaughtered and used for cheap, low-grade meat. To paraphrase animal rights philosopher Gary Francione, there may be more suffering in a glass of milk than in a pound of steak.
If you are a lacto-ovo vegetarian for ethical reasons, I urge you to consider the wealth of information available online about veganism. Going vegan is easy and worthwhile, for yourself, for the environment, and of course, for the animals. Go Vegan Now!

(Please see www.abolitionistapproach.com, www.peacefulprairie.org, www.vegweb.com, and varikingston.wordpress.com for starting points on your vegan journey, and come out every Tuesday at 7:00 for a meeting of the Vegan Animal Rights Initiative in the basement of Stauffer Library.)

First Reading: Francione on Michael Vick

I suppose now is as good a time as any to experiment with the new blog format. Below is a little article Gary Francione wrote about the charges brought against Michael Vick for organizing dog fights.

Hopefully, this post gets as much reaction as Francione’s original post did, and can foster some lively discussion. Please post any thoughts, questions, criticisms etc. in the comments section.

A Note about Michael Vick

http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/2007/08/02/a-note-about-michael-vick/

“There has been an enormous amount of coverage of the alleged dog fighting operation sponsored by Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick. Vick and three other men were indicted on federal felony charges claiming that Vick had sponsored illegal dog fighting, gambled on dog fights and permitted acts of cruelty against animals on his property. The talk shows are filled with talking heads from the “humane community” condemning dog fighting and calling for Vick to be punished if he is, indeed, guilty. Nike and Reebok have suspended products endorsed by Vick.

Please let me be very clear: I think that dog fighting is a terrible thing.

But I must say that the Vick case is rather dramatically demonstrating what I call our “moral schizophrenia” about animals. That is, if one thing is clear, it is that we do not think clearly about our moral obligations to animals.

In this country alone, we kill over ten billion land animals annually for food. The animals we eat—even those supposedly raised “humanely”—suffer as much as the dogs that are used in dog fighting. There is no “need” for us to eat meat, dairy, or eggs. Indeed, these foods are increasingly linked to various human diseases and animal agriculture is an environmental disaster for the planet. We impose pain, suffering, and death on these billions of sentient nonhumans because we enjoy eating their flesh and the products that we make from them.

There is something positively bizarre about condemning Michael Vick for using dogs in a hideous form of entertainment when 99% of us also use animals that are every bit as sentient as dogs in another hideous form of entertainment that is no more justifiable than fighting dogs: eating animals and animal products.