Vegan reply to: 'Don't we have to solve human right issues before solving animal rights issues"?

But…Don’t we have to solve

human rights issues first?

 

“This is a frequently heard “But.” We explain the reasons why we cannot justify consuming animal products and someone asks, “Yes but what about

the problem of battered women?” This is no different than discussing the problem of the inadequate response of the legal system to the problem of battered women, only to have someone respond, “But what about the problem of pedophilia?” There is always something else that could be addressed! And we note that when we ask people who ask this question what they are doing to address human rights issues that they claim are more important than the issue of animal exploitation on which we

are working, nine times out of ten, the answer is usually that they aren’t doing anything. But in the event that you are one of those people who really is concerned about and devoting time, money, or energy to human rights problems, we want to explore this “But” further.

 

There is, of course, implicit in this question the notion that humans matter more in a moral sense than do animals and so we should be focusing on human problems and not animal problems. As we stated at the outset, we aren’t going to challenge

the conventional wisdom that although animals matter morally, humans matter more. [My comment: The authors don’t believe this is the case, but this is a notion that they don’t refute in this book, but in other books.] Yet this “But” still goes nowhere.

First, no one is asking that anyone stop working on or being concerned about human rights issues. On the contrary, we agree that there is a terrible amount of racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, classism, and all sorts of other injustice, and we think it’s great that people care about and work on these issues.

 

But what does that have to do with what we are talking about in this book, which is simply that if you agree that animals matter at all, you are committed to not consume them any longer? The answer is nothing. Even if you think that any and all human rights issues are more important than the issue of animal exploitation, you have to eat while you are fighting for those great causes. How does eating, for example, tofu instead of steak impede your ability to fight for human rights causes? It doesn’t. If anything, a healthy vegan diet will give you more energy to pursue those causes.

And that’s where this analysis comes in. So you just leave your morning meeting with the local child protection agency in connection with your efforts to get better protection for kids and you want to grab something for lunch. Where is the conflict between you and the cow that justifies your having a hamburger? Indeed, if you have the burger, then you have just, by your action, rejected the principle that you claim to accept: that inflicting suffering on animals requires a moral justification.

You don’t have one.

 

Second, even if you are only concerned about human rights issues, you ought to be concerned about animal exploitation as well because it is directly connected to a significant human rights issue. As we discussed earlier, the amount of resources required to produce animal foods is multiples of what is required to produce plant

foods. Although there are certainly political issues that hamper the distribution of food, it is also the case that animal agriculture and a diet of animal foods is increasingly a threat to world hunger, our water supply, our topsoil, etc”

 

Quote from http://www.eatlikeyoucarebook.com/

Violence anywhere, hurts everyone, everywhere. We have a moral obligation to fight against all violence and discrimination. Just because someone is of a different species, doesn't mean that the injustices and suffering that they are experiencing are less important.

 

It is our moral obligation to not inflict unnecessary suffering and death upon non-human animals, i.e. go vegan. I recommend you to read the article and linked pages on this website: