Tag Archives: Animal Rights

More on the martyrdom of Dr. Tiller, and repudiating violence in the animal rights movement

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I’m still very distressed this Monday morning about the George Tiller murder; the raw emotions that undergirded my post last night are still with me. I’m heartened, as I peruse the blogosphere this morning, to see so many rousing calls to action. I’m moved by the willingness of so many to donate afresh to various organizations that facilitate choice for women. Christians remark often that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church”. And Dr. Tiller’s blood will plant many good seeds; just counting those whom I know personally, I’m aware of over $10,000 pledged to pro-choice organizations in the past 24 hours in the name of this man, our martyr.

My own commitment to the pro-choice position has been renewed in recent years, and was galvanized by the experience of witnessing my wife’s pregnancy and the birth of our daughter. (More on my journey from pro-choice to pro-life and back to pro-choice here.) The murder of Dr. Tiller has made me even more resolute in my commitment, as a Christian and as a feminist, to supporting women’s right to abortion. And let me make this clear: had I the skills to do as Dr. Tiller did in his life, I would. As I wrote yesterday, I am Dr. Tiller. If you would curse his name and pray for his end, then do the same for me. I assure you that my dollars and prayers and efforts will go to raise up others to take his place, so that the blood of this martyr will be a great seed for justice. For my conservative friends, please understand that this may seem sufficiently appalling as to serve as an abrogation of our relationship. But in the face of this monstrousness (and the less monstrous, but just as dedicated efforts on the part of others to deny women sovereignty over their flesh) I’m putting my proverbial cards on the table. I am Dr. Tiller. If you hated him, hate me.

Let me note, too, that I have been thinking about my own rhetoric on animal rights. I have made it very clear that, as a vegan who believes that rights are grounded as much in sentience as in humanity, I’m opposed to factory farming and scientific experimentation using animals. But I want to reiterate again my absolute rejection of any use of violence against persons in order to liberate animals. I want to defund animal research. I belong to organizations that work to defund animal research. But I repudiate anyone within the vegan or AR movements who advocates violence. The man who shot Dr. Tiller was nurtured by the language of some in the pro-life movement, a language which demonizes those on the other side and creates a culture in which such murders are seen as justified. Though it is worth noting that the Animal Liberation Front or its affiliates have never been responsible for the death of a factory farmer or medical researcher, let me say again — again, again — the final victory will be won by acts of nonviolent civil disobedience and by concentrated political action.

Those of us who believe passionately in making illegal what is yet legal (as the anti-abortion movement does, and as we in the animal rights community do) must be even more explicit about rejecting language that condones violence as a means to achieving the ends we long for. And we must do more than reject the language of violence; we must repudiate those in our movements who are willing to countenance bloodshed. Then and only then can we make a claim to legitimacy and understanding. I haven’t been clear enough on this issue in the past. I am now.

Cesar Chavez day, take two

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It’s Cesar Chavez Day, and the college is closed. Many things to do besides blog (though I’ll be back at it tomorrow), but can link to this old post of mine about Chavez and faith and this note from the Chavez Center about the great man’s environmentalist commitments.

I would also add this: Chavez devoted his life to justice for farm workers, yes. But he understood that getting the American public to change their buying and eating habits was inextricably linked with that justice struggle. Over and over again, Chavez made the case that there is a story — often a painful and exploitative one — behind what we buy at the grocery store. For those of us committed to veganism and animal rights, for those of us who believe the slaughtering of animals is deeply immoral, there is a reminder in Chavez’s life narrative of the importance of connecting justice and food consumption habits.

The chief immorality of factory farming is what it does to animals, sentient creatures who ought not be confined in misery and killed in terror for our sustenance. But a secondary immorality lies in the often abject conditions in which those who “process” the meat work; meat packers in this country have seen their wages decline dramatically in recent decades. Few factory farms are unionized; safety conditions are often appalling; many factory farms exploit the undocumented workers (overwhelmingly Latino) who now constitute a substantial portion of the labor force. Those of us who are vegans believe that the killing of animals does violence to the souls of the humans who engage in it. Animal liberation matters, but so too does the liberation of migrant workers from some of the ugliest, most unpleasant and most psyche-scarring labor done in this country. Animal rights and human rights can go together.

Consider honoring Cesar Chavez by consuming food today that was produced in a way that causes far less revulsion, far less pain, far less danger to the sentient. No agriculture is purely cruelty-free; pesticides kill animals, and the blades of combines on wheat fields chew up the bodies of small creatures. But we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the better — eat and shop in a way that honors the souls of farm workers and the souls (for they have souls, and rights to boot) of animals.

A hiatus from AR blogging: taking a topical time out

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No, this is not that kind of hiatus. I’ll be blogging fairly regularly for at least the next month or so. The hiatus of the title is topical: I’m going to give the subjects of veganism and animal rights a rest for a while. After reading the tone of my own exchange with Amanda below this post, I realize I’m just not in a good place to be a winsome advocate for other creatures.

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it, but I can’t seem to exercise the same degree of calm and irenic thoughtfulness on animal-related issues that I like to think I am able to provide on at least some other topics. Though I’ve been involved in the animal rights community for many years, it’s only recently that I’ve made veganism and AR work a more explicit focus here on this blog. Though my commitment to animal liberation and to veganism is undiminished, I recognize that my feelings are sufficiently intense and my beliefs sufficiently out of the mainstream that I am in danger of alienating a great many people if I continue to write as I have written. (See some of my more recent posts and their comments sections.) I have received private emails from friends and fellow bloggers whom I respect, folks who are a bit concerned by what they see as an increasingly radical public position on my part. One friend, an attorney, has advised me that it’s not wise to be even obliquely supportive on this blog of “direct action” for animal liberation. I have no particular wish for a long interrogation by the FBI about where some of my money goes.

So until at least 2009, no more posts about animals (except, perhaps, some cute stories about chinchillas). No more posts about veganism. Just as I needed to take a year away from posting about abortion, I need some time to rethink how I make the public case for animals and for a plant-based diet. I’m a nice and moderate fellow on so many issues, but somehow, when I write about animals, my inner zealot emerges. I try to sound like Leo Buscaglia, and I come across like Girolamo Savonarola. It’s time to give this particular topic a rest.

And hey, I’m open to taking requests on the usual topics: relationships, gay history, feminism, men in feminism, older men/younger women, Christian faith and gender justice, and so forth. Suggest away, please!

The sadness of voles, the madness of humans

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I’ve made my opposition to animal research clear many times. And given that my posts on the subject have tended to alienate the very sort of people I am eager to win over to the cause of justice for our fellow creatures, I’m keeping this one short.

This morning’s paper featured this story.

Scientists have confirmed what poets have long known: Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Working with mouse-like rodents called prairie voles, scientists have found that close monogamous relationships alter the chemistry of the brain, fostering the release of a compound that builds loyalty but also plays a role in depression during times of separation.

The scientists found that after four days away from their mates, male voles experienced changes in the emotional center of their brains, causing them to become unresponsive and lethargic. When given a drug that blocked the changes, however, lonely voles emerged from their funk.

I am not a perverse sentimentalist who weeps more for lonely voles than for starving children in Somalia. But I teared up this morning thinking about the sheer wastefulness and the utter absence of empathy that is shot through this experiment. Any ethologist (someone who studies animal behavior without interfering in their lives) could have told you that many pair-bonded species grieve and mope when separated from a mate. Natural death of old age or predation offers plenty of examples; to allow two voles to bond and then deliberately separate them for the purpose of killing one so that his brain chemistry can be studied — this is jaw-droppingly, heartbreakingly immoral. So often, animal suffering is justified in the name of providing “life-saving” treatment for humans. But there is no pressing urgency that can justify the emotional torture of what the study reveals are intelligent creatures. Humans, as the article points out, rarely experience death as a result of being separated from a partner. They do suffer, as voles suffer.

After separating nine male voles from their partners, Young and colleagues from Emory and the University of Regensburg in Germany tested the animals’ ability to cope with stress.

When placed in a pool of water, the voles passively floated instead of trying to swim. In a second test, the animals failed to struggle when suspended by their tails.

The animals displayed “depressive behaviors,” Young said. “They become more passive, more likely to give up.”

When researchers killed the voles and looked inside their brains, they found elevated levels of CRF, which is known to have a role in depression.

Bold emphasis mine.

Cutting off funding for this sort of animal experimentation is critical. While threatening the lives of researchers and their family is unacceptable and inconsistent with justice-centered values, doing everything possible to expose monstrosities like this — often funded with tax-payer dollars — is vital.

Our need to understand the world is real. But real understanding, real knowledge, and real science must be built on a foundation of respect for life and wonder for creation. Goya remarked el sueno de la razon produce monstruos : the sleep of reason breeds monsters.

And as my paper tells me this morning, some of those monsters work for Emory and Regensburg universities.

Pacifism and the Animal Liberation Front: against the heresy of endowing property with rights

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In a comment on the post immediately below this one, my friend Carlos writes:

It just feels to me that you’re sending a high-pitched, almost indiscernible signal that you do condone violence. I think Gonz accused you a long time of “praising with faint damns” those who use violence to liberate animals… on Facebook you list yourself as a supporter of Animal Liberation Front; on your sidebar you link to the Animal Liberation Press Office. Is this a oblique way of signalling your real views, which may be too radical to put out in the open?

What has happened to your pacifism, a subject about which you used to blog for years?

Here’s my archive on pacifism. It’s true I haven’t written on the subject in more than a year and a half. I came to pacifism after 9/11; seven years ago, following the horror of that famous day and its aftermath, I left the Episcopal parish in which I worshipped to join a local Mennonite church. I had started reading the great Mennonite philosopher John Howard Yoder within days of the September 11 attacks, and his Politics of Jesus seemed like the perfect radical alternative to all the warmongering that was in vogue seven autumns ago.

I’ve thought a lot about pacifism and violence over the years since, though I don’t know if those thoughts are particularly insightful. And though I was attracted to the Anabaptist radicalism of the Mennonites, with their peace witness and their call to simplicity, I ended up feeling a bit like an alien in their midst. (There’s still a strong ethnic element in many Mennonite churches — lots of Yoders and Swartleys and Brennemanns, folks descended from the original Swiss-German founders of the faith.) When I left the Mennonites, I dropped the most doctrinal commitment to pacifism, but remained — and remain — enchanted by the notion that in the struggle for justice, ends and means must be radically congruent. In other words, war is made possible by war, peace by peace. And as a Christian, I must still trust that God is in charge of the final ends — but it is my job to live a life aligned with the means which Jesus modeled when He walked the earth. Continue reading →

The Best and the Good Enough: Abolitionists, Welfarists and the agonizing quarrel over the Humane Farms Initiative

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The initial polling looks good for Proposition 2 here in California, the Humane Farms Initiative. Backed by a coalition of animal welfare, veterinary, and family farming groups, the proposition is modeled on initiatives already successfully passed in New Jersey, Florida, Colorado, and Arizona. It’s just about the simplest initiative in town, requiring that every farm animal in California be allowed the freedom to stand up, turn around, and spread its wings (or other limbs.) Implementation will not be required for nearly seven years, until 2015. The proposition is endorsed by the Humane Society of the United States, most of the leading veterinary groups in the state, and a variety of small family farms that struggle to compete with the heavily mechanized agricultural behemoths (the ones, of course, who use the harshest confinement practices.)

The proposition has attracted bi-partisan support. No one would call congressmen Elton Gallegly (R-Ventura) and John Campbell (R-Orange County) liberals; both have written to their colleagues asking for congressional backing for Proposition 2. (See PDF here). Gallegly in particular represents a district with a heavy agricultural presence, making his support all the more noteworthy. The primary public opposition comes, of course, from the biggest of the agricultural producers, along with a loud minority of veterinarians who insist that current confinement practices (in which veal calves cannot stand up, and chickens in battery cages cannot spread their wings) are humane. But there are others, normally on the opposite side of the issue from Big Ag, who are also strongly against Prop 2. Continue reading →

The veeps on the animals

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My former student Hilary forwards this HuffPo piece by Michael Markarian: Where do the Veep Candidates Stand on Animals?

Not surprisingly, Palin is a disaster — particularly because of her enthusiastic support for shooting wolves from helicopters, a tactic used to cut down on predators in order to artificially boost caribou populations (so that they, in turn, can be shot by hunters for sport). Biden is not the best in the Senate, but ranks highly.

If you check out the Humane Society’s legislative scorecard (PDF) you see that a few Republicans have superb records — equal to any that of any Democrat — on animal rights. Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Representative Chris Shays of Connecticut represent the best of the traditional Republican party, and they’ve been loyal fighters for protection for animals and the environment in which we all live. Sarah Palin represents, alas, a different wing of the GOP. One of many reasons why Obama will have my vote this fall.

Unattainable perfection versus the attainable good: of cruelty, veganism, and the lamentable Wesley J. Smith

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I’ve debated, over the last forty-eight hours, whether it was worth responding to this risible National Review article (is that a redundancy, I wonder?): Veganism is Murder. Wesley J. Smith, who is apparently writing a book about the animal rights movement, opines:

Listening to animal-rights activists bray on about the wrongness of slaughtering animals for food — summarized in their advocacy phrase “meat is murder” — one would think that the choice we have is between a diet in which animals are killed and a strictly vegan diet involving no animal deaths.

But life is never that simple: Plant agriculture results each year in the mass slaughter of countless animals, including rabbits, gophers, mice, birds, snakes, and other field creatures. These animals are killed during harvesting, and in the various mechanized farming processes that produce wheat, corn, rice, soybeans, and other staples of vegan diets. And that doesn’t include the countless rats and mice poisoned in grain elevators, or the animals that die from loss of habitat cleared for agricultural use.

Smith is hardly the first to point this out; indeed, serious environmentalists (Smith is neither) have gently made that case to some of the more naive members of the animal rights community. It’s absolutely true that no respirating, masticating, clothes-wearing consuming human can ever claim that the life they live is entirely free from the stain of death. Plant-based agriculture takes lives. A squirrel on the motorway can be crushed as easily by a Toyota Prius as by a Ford Expedition, and the chemicals released by companies making synthetic shoes can do nearly as much harm as is done by those who use real leather. No thoughtful, educated vegan believes the myth of his or her own absolute personal purity. We know, better than most folks, how complicit each of us is in the ongoing Great Crime that human beings are perpetuating against our fellow creatures. Continue reading →

Cruelty-free means humans too: some thoughts on a more holistic veganism

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On some feminist blogs, there’s been good discussion about veganism and larger issues of race and class. Here’s Elle, BFP, and BFP again. The last of these posts deals with the much-ballyhooed “three-week vegan challenge” that Oprah Winfrey recently completed. There’s a lot of PETA-bashing that goes on, but that’s all-too-common on feminist websites, and I’m not interested in dredging up that old issue once more.

What is valuable in these posts is the discussion of whether or not veganism is, inherently, a cruelty-free lifestyle. Those of us who, like myself, don’t consume animal products in any form (food, clothing, etcetera) tend to describe our modus operandi as “cruelty-free.” When my wife and I were buying our new cars, we went out of our way to special order vehicles without any leather in the interiors whatsoever, a request that led to several months wait and not-inconsiderable expense. Of course, not only was our ability to make that choice rooted in privilege, in some sense it was imperfect — animal byproducts end up in tires and other places. We spoke to the car dealers about our desire to be “completely cruelty-free”, but we both knew as we did so we were pursuing an imperfectly attainable goal.

A vegan lifestyle, of course, doesn’t automatically mean an absence of connection to death. When even organic farms are tilled, little field mice are not infrequently cut to pieces. Most organic vegetables are grown with animal manure, usually collected from farms where animals are raised for meat. Trying to avoid all complicity with the machinery of death is, alas, nigh on impossible. Most vegans know all this, of course. They don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, however, and with the limited options at their disposal, they seek to exercise the best possible choices available in any given situation, recognizing that few if any choices they do make will be truly “cruelty-free.” Continue reading →

Hugo’s back pages: of charity galas, sophomoric cynicism, veganism, PETA, socks, and the very real sense that the world can be changed

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I’m bleary-eyed at my desk this morning. United flight 33 from JFK to LAX landed at midnight, but it was just five or six hours ago that I finally got into bed. And today is my long day, one which will see me on campus thirteen hours. On the other hand, I am entirely the architect of my own adversity in this regard, so there will be no whining.

We were in New York this weekend to participate in Farm Sanctuary’s annual gala. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about our visit to the Orland farm; we had a very different but nearly-as-enriching experience in Manhattan.

I like events like this, and it’s not because I enjoy running around in black tie and getting goodie bags. (Okay, I do like both of those things, but in moderation.) What I find so exciting and inspiring is the chance to spend an evening in the presence of people with whom I share the same passionate commitments. As any vegan will tell you, spending a lot of time in debate and argument with folks who don’t share those same values can be exhausting and dispiriting. It’s the same thing with feminism, or any other ideological commitment that involves a holistic transformation of how one lives, thinks, acts, and consumes. Being in the presence of those who do what you do, and have often done it longer and more publicly, is galvanizing. Continue reading →