Letters to the Editor
NY Newsday
22 January 2004
In the controversy about whether Mad Cow Disease poses
a threat or not, one thing has been forgotten: this is a living, breathing,
sentient being who loves her babies and wants to keep her life just like you
and I.
I became vegetarian when I realized, while eating a
chicken leg, that this was part of an animal who bled like me and cried from
pain, just like me. Yes, I did feel better physically as a result. My asthma
lessened, gout symptoms and an 'idiopathic rash' (medic slang for "we don't
know what the hell it is") both disappeared.
But more importantly, I was happy that I was getting
'right' with the other beings who share our world. I wasn't being a
hypocrite like friends who said "I'll eat it but I don't want to think about
it."
Take a look into the 'window to the slaughterhouse' the
Mad Cow Disease furor has offered. It told the story of "Downers" - cows so
sick and feeble they are dragged to the slaughterhouse or pushed by
bulldozers; there is so much more to tell. Think about these animals who
watch in terror as the knife cuts their throat. They are looking at you now
- can you look back?
Kiley Blackman, spokesperson
Animal Defenders of Westchester