Sandra Higgins
Sandra Higgins, MSc Couns Psych, MBPsS
Animal rights/vegan activist, Founder of
Eden Farmed
Animal Sanctuary Ireland and
GoVeganWorld.com
"As animal rights activists, we do not have the right to ask for anything less than veganism."
"The aim of the GoVeganWorld campaign is not for people to cause less harm. It asks them to stop harming others. Its aim is not better treatment of the other animals we use. It asks that we stop breeding them for our use at all. Its aim is not for people to go vegan in their own time. It asks for them to go vegan now. Its aim is to be part of the solution so that everyone is enabled to go vegan regardless of demographics, employment, or any other obstacle that they believe prevents them from being vegan."
"If you asked most people if they think it is wrong to unnecessarily harm other sentient beings, they would answer that it is. This is because we all know that other animals feel. They have the capacity to experience pleasure and are harmed when we deprive them of the opportunity to do so. They experience physical and psychological pain when we hurt them. Like us, they have an interest in continuing their lives and do not want to die. Therefore, most people already hold the values that underpin veganism. Socio-cultural inheritance of animal use along with careful deception by the industries that profit from it, combine to enable us to behave in ways that are inconsistent with our deeply held ethical beliefs and values."
"The greatest problem on earth today is the notion that some lives matter less than others. We imagine that non-human lives hardly matter at all. We live as though our difference from other species entitles us to use them and that they exist for our benefit. This view is not only inaccurate, it is unethical."
"I have seen the light go out of too many eyes. Every one of them struggles to hold onto their precious only life, right until their last breath. A vegan world is only the starting point; our goal must be their freedom from us."
"Every farmer has orphaned lambs that they bottle feed. I have experienced this bond with bottle fed lambs many times. They imprint on me; look on me as their mother. They trust me. They depend on me for their survival; for their very lives. When something goes wrong, they call for me, seeking the comfort of secure attachment, as we all did with our early caregivers, our mothers. They attach in this same way to the farmers who bottle feed them, and then send them to their deaths."
Watch video of Sandra's presentation at the 2017 United Poultry Concerns Conscious Eating Conference.
