'I think animals should be humanely treated'
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

There's an Elephant in the Room blog
July 2017

Have you ever wondered why we say these words? Because if we really thought of animals as the objects, the things, the commodities and resources that our use of them is built upon, we wouldn’t even consider being ‘humane’. We’re not ‘humane’ to furniture; we’re not ‘humane’ to machines.

happy chickens

It’s what everyone says. They say it while eating their flesh, drinking the milk they made for their infants, using the eggs they laid in their desperate and futile attempts to be mothers. They say it wearing flayed skins, body fibres and feathers, freshly washed top to toe, with sweet perfumed toiletries of corpse parts and ingredients for which helpless, despairing creatures were tortured in labs.

‘Oh, I think animals should be humanely treated.’ Have you ever wondered why we say these words?

Because if we really thought of animals as the objects, the things, the commodities and resources that our use of them is built upon, we wouldn’t even consider being ‘humane’. We’re not ‘humane’ to furniture; we’re not ‘humane’ to machines.

The words ‘I think animals should be humanely treated’ are a clear recognition and an absolute admission that those whom we use are capable of suffering harm and distress as a result of the practices we fund with our consumer cash.

While we continue to pay for and support using the lives and bodies of members of nonhuman species, with our own words we’re admitting either that we don’t know the facts, or else we’re admitting we know and don’t care. But if the latter is true, isn’t it curious that we don’t want others to know this about us?

Our victims value their lives and they don’t want to die. Our every use of them reinforces the unjust and extremely violent position that our self interest – no matter how trivial – is of greater importance than our victims’ most basic right to live. Every use we make is unnecessary, causes them harm and sets them on a path where their only escape will be a premature and horrific death.

So the next time we hear the words, ‘I think animals should be humanely treated’, why not pause and reflect. Is the speaker saying that they don’t know the facts? Or are they saying that they do know the facts but that they don’t care?

Because the only way we can make the words sincere is by being vegan.

Find out about veganism today.


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