Abortion is the karma for killing animals
An animal rights message is warmly received on the political left (and
met with hostility on the right!), and roughly a third of the Democratic
Party is pro-life. So there's no contradiction.
If you accept the premise that abortion, like war, is the karma for killing
animals, then no Hindu, Buddhist, nor Jain is ever going to take
"meat-eating pro-lifers" (nor "meat-eating pacifists") seriously... and only
*vegans* are in a position to condemn abortion.
In an article on animal rights appearing in the August 1988 issue of
Harper's magazine entitled "Just Like Us?", bioethicist Art Caplan could see
the obvious parallels between extending rights to animals and extending
rights to the unborn, and he was worried: if we extend rights to animals,
will we have to extend rights to the unborn to be consistent?
"That's going to be the end of abortion!" he exclaimed.
Law professor Gary Francione tried to placate Art Caplan saying, "I'm sure
there's some way we can keep abortion legal."
Pro-lifers quote this statement from Gary Francione ad nauseum despite the
fact that things have changed considerably since 1988.
(I wonder if pro-lifers are still worried about Michael Dukakis being 20
points ahead of Bush Sr. in the polls?)
Just four years later, in a 1992 television interview with conservative talk
show host Dennis Prager, Ingrid Newkirk (co-founder, PETA), admitted the
animal rights movement is divided on abortion. In 1998, the Animals' Agenda
ran a cover story on the debate within the animal rights movement over
abortion. During the late '90s, I was on an email list for pro-life
vegetarians and vegans moderated by Rachel MacNair, vegan, Quaker pacifist,
political liberal, and past-president of Feminists For Life.
And in 2004, on the Democrats For Life email list, Maria Krasinski mentioned
a poll which found animal activists evenly divided on abortion. This is
significant. It either means animal rights are a bipartisan cause which
conservatives can support alongside liberals, OR it means many liberals are
uncomfortable with abortion.
If vegetarianism were merely about "fit" or following a peculiar set of
"dietary laws" why would pro-lifers be offended by pro-choice vegetarians
and vegans?
They're offended because THEY KNOW vegetarianism involves the animals' right
to life, and thus these pro-choicers appear to value animal life over human
life under some circumstances.
And issues like animal experimentation, circuses, and fur have nothing to do
with diet, eating, nor food, but do involve the animals' right to life.
Leonardo Da Vinci, Count Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas Gandhi, George Bernard Shaw,
Susan B. Anthony, Percy Shelley, etc. were all vegetarian and none of them
were Jewish.
**You'd think the unborn right-to-lifers would immediately understand the
animal-right-to-lifers!**
At any rate, it's hypocritical of pro-life Republicans to demonize the
animal rights movement for not being officially pro-life while they allow
their own political party to remain a "big tent" on abortion for fear of
losing votes. It doesn't occur to them that the animal rights movement faces
an identical political reality?
The Republican Party is allowed to be a "big tent" on abortion but the
animal rights movement isn't?
If pro-life Christians think their religion exempts them from having to
protect animals, aren't pro-choice Christians similarly exempt from having
to protect the unborn if their religion permits abortion?
Shouldn't pro-life Christians, claiming to "cover" or "do unto others..."
extend an exemption to pro-choice Christians, allowing them to exempt
themselves from having to protect the unborn on religious grounds?
Or in each case do SECULAR arguments, which are religion-neutral and thus
applicable to *everyone*, including atheists and agnostics, overrule
religious beliefs?
Go on to: A Continuation of Ahimsa
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