My Blog Against Abuse

As many of you pointed out to me months ago, I used to use the phrase "use and abuse" (more often than I do now) and abusing is usually only possible if you’re using in the first place (there’s always wanton cruelty to an animal you have no relationship with, and that is terrible, but that’s not what I’m talking about).

The problem is the institutionalized use of nonhuman animals. Nonhuman animals are, against their will, important parts of industries that produce food, clothing, drugs and consumer products, as well as industries such as entertainment, sports and research.

In order to be unwitting accomplices in these endeavors (and sometimes they’re the unwitting sole focus): we breed them or abduct them (i.e., take them from their home and family); bring them to wherever we decide they will live; feed them what we decide they will eat (whether or not it is good or natural for them); drug them if it will serve our purposes (to make them produce more or run faster or feel less pain so they can perform better or run faster while injured); decide when they will reproduce and how (often artificially, and often violently); decide if they will ever see the light of day; determine when they are no longer useful to us; and end their lives in whatever way we see fit. And there’s often transportation involved in various stages of the process.

Even if all of those elements are accomplished the most comfortable way possible, two factors are always present: we take their physical and reproductive freedom from them, and we kill them when we want to. When I conjure up the kindest scenario possible, say, taking an animal from the wild and putting that animal on display in surroundings that closely mimic her natural home, I’m still left with: why do that? The answer to that question and any question regarding why we use animals is the same: because we can and because we want to. If it benefits us in any way–even as entertainment or as a curiosity, we  will use animals.

In my mind, that’s not right. When there is absolutely no dire need to use sentient beings, say as food or clothing or transportation or sport, I find it morally unjustifiable to do so.  Someone will always write in with some extreme circumstance situated on some remote deserted island and ask me to choose between dying and killing a fish for food (which I’m not sure I am capable of doing, but you never know), and I’m not talking about that.

In 2007, in the developed world, where we know that a perfectly healthy diet can be created from vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds, legumes and grains (sure, and 15 drops of B12), and we certainly have no need to wear animal products in any weather, and there are effective, efficient models for research that do not require animals, and I don’t even have to discuss sports or entertainment because I’ve yet to meet a person who attempts to claim to need animals for those purposes, why haven’t our ethics evolved more?

Using the life, body, time, energy, secretions, skin, and natural abilities of another to your benefit is the abuse I fight every day. 

Join me.

And check out Deb Durant’s post as well as Kenneth Cassar’s! They, too have blogged for a cause today.