Someone on a forum I visit regularly wondered about the ethics of vegans keeping animals -- worrying that making life and death decisions for them is somehow disrespecting their rights as individuals and fellow creatures. I have thought about this a lot over the years, and here is what I think...
Originally Posted on www.permies.com 08/01/2013 08:52:51 PM
First -- I am a vegan (mostly - see below)
I find it interesting that most vegans
do not think keeping animals can fit in with the vegan ethic. It
always seems that there is that whole "NO animals = Good vs. ANY
animals = Bad" dynamic going on. What about "Animals, YES,
but still vegan AND an animal lover" possibility? I bring this
up because up until about a year ago, I had been an
ovo-lacto-vegetarian for nearly 30 years. I ate very little dairy
because I could not quite feel right about even the so-called
"humanely raised" cows and goats necessary to the dairy
industry, but I ate eggs freely because we raise our own hens. (Very
happy, truly free-range hens, I might add.) Last year, I really
couldn't take the guilt any more and went to an almost 100% vegan
diet. (The eggs were and still are actually more for the dogs and
cats than for us -- we don't believe in forcing obligatory carnivores
to be vegans, and feeding them healthy eggs from well-cared for and
cherished hens -- who by the way, abandon these same eggs to rot when
they are not broody -- gives them animal protein without lost lives
or our having to compromise our ethics by purchasing meat products at
the store.)
I still eat eggs, but that is it. And
as I said, the hens we have are very happy. They hatched here --
after the initial 6 we bought way back in 1992, we have not needed to
buy any more except once when a huge black snake ate the entire bunch
of one of our hen's two-week-old babies while she was parading them
around the goat yard. (I saw the snake when there were two left, but
couldn't get through the gate and across the big yard fast enough to
stop the snake. It was horrifying to see!) She was so despondent that
I went to a hatchery and bought 10 Buff Orphington 3-day-old chicks
and put them with her in the place she had been using for her babies.
I wish you could have heard the excited, happy clucks coming out of
that box! She was in absolute ecstasy to find that "her"
babies had somehow come back to her. Next day she preened and clucked
and mothered like a new hen. I didn't like buying chicks from a
hatchery, but the difference it made to the emotional well-being of
that momma hen made it worth it. (And by the way, when our hens hatch
out chicks, some of them ARE roosters. That's okay too. We love them
and care for them and they all die of natural causes -- usually well
into their teens. No chicken has ever been killed by humans on this
homestead, though we have lost a few over the years to non-human
predators.) Our chickens roam freely through the garden, goat yard
and woods -- the only tyranny imposed upon them is that we count them
and lock them in their house at night for their own safety.
Considering the horrible lives that most chickens have, those few we
got from the hatchery were saved incredibly cruel deaths because we
purchased them. That is why the idea that keeping animals is somehow
exploitative and cruel is so inexplicable to me. Shouldn't a truly
ethical person try to find ways to help animals by rescuing them from
factory farms and cruel situations to care for them in loving
environments?
In some ways, the idea that keeping
animals is unethical and wrong for a vegan is akin to saying that all
the children "enslaved" in clothing and toy factories in
third world countries should be put out on the streets to enjoy their
freedom from slavery. Okay, then what? Is it okay at that point to
offer them food and shelter or do we leave them entirely free to
starve to death or be exploited by someone else? Remember, they no
longer have a job, so they won't be able to pay for food and shelter
themselves. When you solve one problem, sometimes you only open the
door to another.
Many domestic animals are just as
helpless when offered their freedom. They grow up in human-controlled
environments, being cared for (or abused and neglected) and knowing
nothing of what it means to be free, wild animals because they
AREN'T. If you decide to free all the dogs and cats in the shelter by
opening the doors, you will have sentenced them to slow death by
disease and starvation or left them at the mercy of fast automobiles,
dog-fighters and generally nasty types who look for strays to exploit
them as bait, for crush movies, or just to have something smaller and
less powerful than they are to beat and abuse because they can. But
hey, they're FREE, and that's what counts. Free to live their lives
however they want to while they die of neglect because they were
never intended by Nature to live without humans. Same thing goes for
laboratory animals like monkeys and mice. I hate laboratories, but
only a simple-minded and heartless FOOL would think that they could
turn loose poor creatures whose lives have never been free, whose
entire existence has been that cage or box. Some ultra-extremist
animal rights groups, trying to do the right thing for animals have
been responsible for sending many "rescued" animals into a
psychological hell that they never recovered from by simply opening
the door and saying "come out -- you're free". Let's all
work on freeing them, but do it in a way that truly saves them rather
than throwing them -- in the name of freedom --into a confusing world
that literally terrifies them to death. You can talk about the
exploitation of cows and goats and pigs as well, but what do you
propose we DO with them after we set them free? Pigs and goats would
probably take fairly well to being turned loose in the woods
somewhere, but have you ever seen a WILD cow? (not a water buffalo or
a wild species of bovine, but a domesticated cow.) And if you care
about wildlife at all, what do you think the impact of turning
millions of head of cows, goats and pigs loose in the wild would be
on the natural ecosystems there?
We have goats. They are all rescues. We
have dogs and cats as well -- all rescues. Only the chickens are not
rescues (or are they?) All of these animals are subject to our
control and our whims, but they are anything but pitiable or
exploited. They are fed regularly (I even cook two meals a day for
the dogs to ensure their diet is balanced.) They live in the house
with us (well, the dogs and cats anyway). They are given medical care
when needed and they get more attention, cuddles and all around love
than most human children. When the time comes and they are no longer
healthy and comfortable, we sometimes have to make hard decisions,
but that day never comes before trying our best to cure them and
prolong their lives as best we can -- until the quality of life is so
deteriorated that we feel it would be crueler to prolong than to end
it. Yes, we make life and death decisions for them. Tell me though,
is it less cruel to allow a suffering animal to die naturally, often
in severe pain and over a prolonged period just because we have no
"right" to interfere with their freedom? What makes FREEDOM
so much more important than COMPASSION?
So... I am a mostly vegan, as is my
husband... BUT... we do have animals (and use their by-products --
aka manure). I do not feel that our being vegan is in any way
compromised by choosing to ignore the plight of so many abandoned and
neglected animals merely because to do so would limit their freedom.
I deplore animal exploitation and I am actively working every day to
help animals in any way I can, but there are right and wrong ways to
do things. You can't just open all the doors and declare the problem
solved unless you also follow up and help the prisoners to acclimate
to this new and often terrifying freedom you CHOSE to GIVE them.
(Capitalized to make you aware that even opening doors is
manipulative.)
Again, just my two cents.
