Unmistakable Parallels
Calvin Freiburger...
You wrote an opinion piece on Live Action News on October 6, 2013, entitled,
"The Unmistakeable Parallels Between Abortion and Slavery."
http://liveactionnews.org/unmistakable-parallels-abortion-slavery/
Doesn't the fact that "blacks were held like cattle" as you put it, indicate
to you that it's wrong to enslave animals, too?
You quote Dr. Josiah Nott from the 19th century saying, "...the negro is a
totally distinct and inferior animal or species of animal from the
Caucasian..."
Doesn't that indicate that if animals were never enslaved to begin with, the
idea of enslaving certain classes of humans might not have arisen?
And you speak of "Christianity's key role in ending slavery."
Did Christianity end slavery, or was it secular social progress, with the
Christians resisting abolition as many Christians today resist animal
rights?
I would like to see organized religion join the struggle for animal rights.
Religion has been wrong before.
It has been said that on issues such as women's rights and human slavery,
religion has impeded social and moral progress.
It was a Spanish Catholic priest, Bartolome de las Casas, who first proposed
enslaving black Africans in place of the Native Americans who were dying off
in great numbers.
The church of the past never considered human slavery to be a moral evil.
The Protestant churches of Virginia, South Carolina, and other southern
states actually passed resolutions in favor of the human slave traffic.
Human slavery was called "by Divine Appointment," "a Divine institution," "a
moral relation," "God's institution," "not immoral," but "founded in
right."
The slave trade was called "legal," "licit," "in accordance with humane
principles" and "the laws of revealed religion."
New Testament verses calling for obedience and subservience on the part of
slaves (Titus 2:9-10; Ephesians 6:5-9; Colossians 3:22-25; I Peter 2:18-25)
and respect for the master (I Timothy 6:1-2; Ephesians 6:5-9) were often
cited in order to justify human slavery.
Some of Jesus' parables refer to human slaves. Paul's epistle to Philemon
concerns a runaway slave returned to his master.
The Quakers were one of the earliest religious denominations to condemn
human slavery.
"Paul's outright endorsement of slavery should be an undying embarrassment
to Christianity as long as they hold the entire New Testament to be the word
of God," wrote Quaker physician Dr. Charles P. Vaclavik in his 1986 book,
The Vegetarianism of Jesus Christ. "Without a doubt, the American
slaveholders quoted Paul again and again to substantiate their right to hold
slaves.
"The moralist movement to abolish slavery had to go to non-biblical sources
to demonstrate the immoral nature of slavery. The abolitionists could not
turn to Christian sources to condemn slavery, for Christianity had become
the bastion of the evil practice through its endorsement by the Apostle
Paul.
"Only the Old Testament gave the abolitionist any Biblical support in his
efforts to free the slaves. 'You shall not surrender to his master a slave
who has taken refuge with you.' (Deuteronomy 23:15) What a pittance of
material opposing slavery from a book supposedly representing the word of
God."
In 1852, Josiah Priest wrote Bible Defense of Slavery. Others claimed blacks
were subhuman. Buckner H. Payne, calling himself "Ariel," wrote in 1867:
"the tempter in the Garden of Eden...was a beast, a talking beast...the
negro." Ariel argued that since the negro was not part of Noah's family, he
must have been a beast.
"Eight souls were saved on the ark, therefore, the negro must be a beast,
and "consequently, he has no soul to be saved."
The status of animals in contemporary human society is like that of human
slaves in centuries past.
Quoting Luke 4:18, Colossians 3:11, Galatians 3:28 or any other biblical
passages merely suggesting liberty, equality and an end to human slavery in
the 18th or 19th century would have been met with the kind of response
animal rights activists receive today if they quote Bible verses in favor of
ethical vegetarianism and compassion towards animals.
Some of the worst crimes in history were committed in the name of religion.
There's a great song along these lines from 1992 by Rage Against the
Machine, entitled "Killing in the Name".
Someone once pointed out that while Hitler may have claimed to be a
Christian, he imprisoned Christian clergy who opposed the Nazi regime, and
even Christian churches were subject to the terror of the Nazis. Thinking
along these lines, I realize that while I would like to see organized
religion support animal liberation (e.g., as was the case with Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. and the American civil rights movement) rather than simply
remain an obstacle to social and moral progress (e.g., 19th century southern
churches in the U.S. upheld human slavery on biblical grounds), this support
must come freely and voluntarily (e.g., "The Liberation of All Life"
resolution issued by the World Council of Churches in 1988).
Religious institutions can't be coerced into rewriting their holy books or
teaching a convoluted doctrine to suit the whims or the secular political
ideology of a particular demagogue. American liberals argue that principle
of the separation of church and state gives us freedom FROM religious
tyranny and theocracy. Conservatives argue (the other side of the coin!)
that one of the reasons America's founding fathers established the
separation of church and state was to prevent government intrusion or
intrusion by persons of other faiths or other denominations into religious
affairs.
I agree with Reverend Marc Wessels, Executive Director of the International
Network for Religion and Animals (INRA), who said on Earth Day 1990:
"It is a fact that no significant social reform has yet taken place in this
country without the voice of the religious community being heard. The
endeavors of the abolition of slavery; the women's suffrage movement; the
emergence of the pacifist tradition during World War I; the struggles to
support civil rights, labor unions, and migrant farm workers; and the
anti-nuclear and peace movements have all succeeded in part because of the
power and support of organized religion.
"Such authority and energy is required by individual Christians and the
institutional church today if the liberation of animals is to become a
reality."
****
At a pro-life demonstration years ago, when Father Frank Pavone of Priests
For Life asked Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King if the
pro-life demonstrations were comparable to the civil rights movement, she
replied, "Father, this IS the civil rights movement!"
If protecting unborn children is a noble cause and calling, a just and
religious cause, like the civil rights movement, why should pro-lifers have
to resort to lies and deception?
The Ten Commandments warn against bearing false witness.
Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, said: "Let your word 'yes' be yes and
your 'no,' no. Anything beyond this is from the evil one."
(Isn't Satan known as a deceiver?)
Even the apostle Paul, who taught a completely different theology than that
of Jesus, condemned dishonesty (Colossians 3:13).
The apostle Paul said, "If anyone has confidence in the Law, I am ahead of
him."
Does that mean Paul places himself ahead of Jesus, who repeatedly upheld the
Law (Matthew 5:17-19; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 16:17), as did his apostles (see
chapters 10, 15 and 21 of Acts)?
If Christians aren't even following the moral instructions Paul gives
throughout his epistles, if they aren't even following Paul, then no one's
going to take them seriously, what to speak of putting them ahead of Jesus!
Boy, they "believe"!
Paul quotes Jesus as having said to him three times, "My grace is sufficient
for thee." (II Corinthians 12:8-9) Christians sometimes misinterpret this
verse to mean they're free to do as they please—ignoring the rest of the New
Testament, and (especially) Jesus' and Paul's other teachings.
The apostle Paul taught his followers to bless their persecutors and not
curse them (Romans 12:14), to care for their enemies by providing them with
food and drink (12:20), and to pay their taxes and obey all earthly
governments (13:1-7). He mentioned giving all his belongings to feed the
hungry (I Corinthians 13:3), and taught giving to the person in need
(Ephesians 4:23). He told his followers it was wrong to take their conflicts
before non-Christian courts rather than before the saints. (I Corinthians
6:1)
The apostle Paul wrote in I Corinthians Chapter 7:
"It is good for a man not to touch a woman, but because of prevailing
immoralities, let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her
own husband.
"The husband must render to his wife the obligations that are due her, and
similarly the wife to her husband...
"Do not deprive each other, except by mutual agreement for a time to devote
yourselves unhindered by prayer; and come together again, so that Satan may
not tempt you on account of your lack of self-control."
(The apostle Paul's words here suggest regulated or restricted sexual
activity, even within marriage!)
"I say this by way of concession, not as a regulation. I wish all were as I
am (celibate), but each person has his own gift from God, the one in this
direction, the other in that.
"To the single and the widows, I say that it is good for them to remain as I
am (celibate); but if they cannot restrain their passions, let them marry,
for it is better to marry than to be consumed by passion.
"To the married couples I command -- not really I but the Lord -- that the
wife must not leave her husband; and in case she does separate, she must
either stay single or make up with her husband. And the husband must not
divorce his wife.
"...if the unbeliever wants to separate, let there be separation..."
(Jesus forbade divorce, except in the case of unfaithfulness. And here we
see Paul forbidding divorce, except in the case of an unbeliever demanding
separation!)
"Regarding the unmarried I have no divine injunction, but as one who has
received mercy from the Lord to be trustworthy, I give my opinion... it is
good for a person to remain in his present situation.
"Are you united to a wife? do not seek release. Are you unattached to a
woman? Do not seek a wife. But in case you marry, you do not sin; nor does
the unmarried woman sin if she marries...
"The single person is concerned with the Lord's affairs, how to please the
Lord, but the married person is concerned with things of the world, how to
please his wife; he has divided interests.
"The unmarried woman or the virgin is interested in the Lord's affairs, that
she may be dedicated to Him in body and spirit; but the married woman is
concerned with things of the world, how she may please her husband."
"I mention this for your own good, not to throw a rope around you but to
promote proper behavior and undisturbed devotion to the Lord."
Paul repeatedly attacked sexual immorality.
"This is God's will—your sanctification, that you keep yourselves from
sexual immorality, that each of you learn how to take his own wife in purity
and honor, not in lustful passion like the gentiles who have no knowledge of
God." (I Thessalonians 4:3-5)
Paul told his followers not to associate with sexually immoral people (I
Corinthians 5:9-12, 6:15,18). He condemned homosexuality (Romans 1:24-27)
and incest (I Corinthians 5:1).
"Make no mistake," warned Paul, "no fornicator or idolater, none who are
guilty either of adultery or of homosexual perversion, no thieves or
grabbers or drunkards or slanderers or swindlers, will possess the kingdom
of God." (I Corinthians 6:9-10 [NEB])
Paul condemned wickedness, immorality, depravity, greed, murder, quarreling,
deceit, malignity, gossip, slander, insolence, pride (Romans 1:29-30),
drunkenness, carousing, debauchery, jealousy (Romans 13:13), sensuality,
magic arts, animosities, bad temper, selfishness, dissensions, envy
(Galatians 5:19-21; greediness (Ephesians 4:19; Colossians 3:5), foul
speech, anger, clamor, abusive language, malice (Ephesians 4:29-32),
dishonesty (Colossians 3:13), materialism (I Timothy 6:6-11), conceit,
avarice, boasting and treachery. (II Timothy 3:2-4)
Paul told the gentiles to train themselves for godliness, to practice
self-control and lead upright, godly lives (Galatians 5:23; I Timothy 4:7;
II Timothy 1:7; Titus 2:11-12). He instructed them to ALWAYS pray
constantly. (I Thessalonians 5:17)
Paul praised love, joy, peace, kindness, generosity, fidelity and gentleness
(Galatians 5:22-23). He told his followers to conduct themselves with
humility and gentleness (Ephesians 4:2), to speak to one another in psalms
and hymns; to sing heartily and make music to the Lord. (Ephesians 5:19;
Colossians 3:16)
Paul wrote further that women should cover their heads while worshiping, and
that long hair on males is dishonorable. (I Corinthians 11:5-14)
According to Paul, Christian women are to dress modestly and prudently, and
are not to be adorned with braided hair, gold or pearls or expensive
clothes. (I Timothy 2:9)
The late Reverend Janet Regina Hyland (1933 - 2007), author of God's
Covenant with Animals (it's available through People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals, or PETA) says Christians citing "three times..." are
quoting Paul out of context. Paul was very strict with himself:
"But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection; lest that by any
means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway." (I
Corinthians 9:27)
Regina Hyland said this verse indicates it's possible for one to lose one's
salvation (a serious point of contention among born agains!).
Christians who focus only on II Corinthians 12:8-9 MUST be quoting Paul out
of context, because otherwise it doesn't make any sense: on the one hand,
Paul is warning that drunkards, thieves, homosexuals, etc. will not inherit
the kingdom of God, and on the other hand he's saying if you call on Jesus
three times... you can do whatever you want?!
Boy, not all Christians are pro-life! Couldn't pro-choice Christians cite
"three times..." to justify their right to abortion?!
The traditional interpretation of II Corinthians 12:8-9 is that Paul had a
"thorn" in his side, and asked the Lord what to do about it. The response
was simple: "My grace is sufficient for thee." This was a response to a
specific problem, not a license to do as one pleases, or why else would Paul
himself have given so many other moral instructions throughout his epistles?
Reverend Frank Hoffman, a retired pro-life vegan Methodist minister, and
owner of the
All-Creatures.org,
Christian vegan website, says he agrees with the traditional interpretation.
****
The apostle Paul told the gentiles to train themselves for godliness, to
practice self-control and lead upright, godly lives (Galatians 5:23; I
Timothy 4:7; II Timothy 1:7; Titus 2:11-12). But even conservative
Christians distinguish between victimless crimes and crimes with victims.
But If a pregnant teen goes into a Crisis Pregnancy Center, the Christians
there will not judge her for the sin of fornication, nor equate the
victimless crime of fornication with the sin of killing an unborn child.
Even conservative Christians distinguish between crimes with victims and
victimless crimes.
Pro-life feminist Juli Loesch wrote:
"Each woman has the right (to contraception)... But once a woman has
conceived, she can no longer choose whether or not to become a mother.
Biologically, she is already a mother... the woman's rights are then
limited, as every right is limited, by the existence of another human being
who also has rights."
Recognizing the rights of another class of beings limits our freedoms and
our choices and requires a change in our lifestyle — the abolition of
(human) slavery is a good example of this.
Are whites free to own slaves or lynch blacks?
No! Because of the civil rights movement, we've corrected that injustice.
Is domestic violence tolerated?
No! Because of the women's movement, domestic violence is unacceptable.
Should hate crimes against LGBTs be permitted under the guise of "choice"?
No! LGBTs have rights.
This isn't rocket science, but if animals have rights, then our freedoms and
choices to commit crimes against animals are similarly limited.
"Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for
entertainment," insists People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
As the animal rights movement continues to influence mainstream society,
humankind is finally ending millennia of injustices against animals.
Like pacifists and/or pro-lifers, vegetarianism in itself is merely an
ethic, and not a religion, and not confined to any single religion, though
it has served as the basis for entire religious traditions throughout
history: Buddhism, Jainism, Pythagoreansm, and possibly early Christianity
all immediately come to mind.
As an ethic, vegetarianism has attracted some of the greatest figures in
history.
The Table of Contents to Rynn Berry's 1993 book, Famous Vegetarians and
Their Favorite Recipes: Lives & Lore from Buddha to the Beatles lists:
Pythagoras: "An ancient Greek religious teacher."
Gautama the Buddha: "An ancient Indian savant and religious teacher."
Mahavira: "The historical founder of the world's oldest vegetarian
religion---the Jains of India."
Plato (and Socrates): "Pythagorean philosophers who are the founders of the
Western philosophical tradition."
Plutarch: "An ancient essayist and biographer, famous for his Lives of
notable Greeks and Romans.
Leonardo da Vinci: "Italian Renaissance man; Leonardo is one of Western
Civilization's greatest geniuses."
Percy Shelley: "Scientist, classicist, aesthete, Shelley was probably the
most gifted English Romantic poet."
Count Leo Tolstoy: "Nineteenth century Russian author, Tolstoy is considered
to be the world's greatest novelist."
Annie Besant: "Nineteenth century English social reformer and spiritual
leader...at once a feminist, a labor leader, a theosophist, a freethinker, a
devoted mother and a founder of the planned parenthood movement. She is one
of the most remarkable women of modern times."
Mohandas Gandhi: "Indian civic and spiritual leader; inventor of the hunger
strike; architect of Indian independence; father of modern India."
George Bernard Shaw: "Celebrated wit; peerless music and drama critic;
essayist and dramatist of genius."
Bronson Alcott: "American transcendentalist philosopher; father of Louisa
May Alcott; founder of the first vegetarian commune, Fruitlands."
Adventist physician Dr. John Harvey Kellogg: "World-class surgeon,
pioneering nutritionist, and food inventor extraordinaire. Kellogg invented
peanut butter, flaked cereals, and the first meat substitutes made from nuts
and grains."
Henry Salt: "Venerable figure in the vegetarian movement; author of such
vegetarian classics as Seventy Years Among the Savages, and Animal Rights."
Frances Moore Lappe: "Author of Diet for a Small Planet, Lappe's two million
copy 1971 bestseller put vegetarianism on the map, and awakened Westerners
to the nutritional and economic benefits of a vegetarian diet."
Isaac Bashevis Singer and Malcolm Muggeridge are described as the first
major literary figures in the West to turn vegetarian since Tolstoy.
Brigid Brophy: "Noted for her formidable intellect, Brigid Brophy is an
English novelist, biographer, and critic of the first rank. She is the first
major woman novelist to become a vegetarian."
****
Pythagoras warned: "Those who kill animals for food will be more prone than
vegetarians to torture and kill their fellow men."
"When we turn to the protection of animals, we sometimes hear it said that
we ought to protect men first and animals afterwards...By condoning cruelty
to animals, we perpetuate the very spirit which condones cruelty to men."
--Henry Salt
George T. Angell, founder of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals, said, “I am sometimes asked, ‘Why do you spend time
and money talking about kindness to animals when there is cruelty to men?’ I
answer: ‘I am working at the roots.’”
"The vegetarian movement," wrote Count Leo Tolstoy, "ought to fill with
gladness the souls of all those who have at their heart the realization of
God's Kingdom on earth."
Animal advocacy has a long history within Christianity. Christians today
should support animal rights as they support civil rights and/or protection
of unborn children.
I'll be honest with you: we humans can't end abortion (or war) until we
cease to kill animals.
Religious pro-lifers claim they don't have to "work," but aren't they
"working" to protect the unborn?
We see pro-lifers lobbying Congress; signing online petitions; contributing
financially to right-to-life groups; educating the American people, the
American public and the younger generation on life issues; engaging in
political activism; engaging in activities that require effort, with a
specific result (e.g., greater protection of the unborn) intended as the
desired outcome.
If faith in Jesus is all that's required, why are pro-lifers struggling or
engaging in "work" to end abortion? Why doesn't the abortion crisis
magically go away as soon as one accepts Jesus as one's Lord and Saviour?
Beyond mere faith in Jesus, we see religious pro-lifers engaging in
religious activity: praying for an end to the abortion crisis; 40 Days For
Life of Prayer and Fasting; the Walk For Life, etc.
Again: if faith in Jesus is all that's required, why do pro-lifers have to
struggle, or engage in effort or "work" to end abortion?
Legal abortion is promoted in China, and we now see a gender imbalance of 37
million more males than females in China, due to sex-selective abortion.
Ending abortion in China would end the gender imbalance.
Whether expressed in terms of karma (action and reaction) or a secular
slippery slope argument familiar to pro-lifers, clearly, there is a direct
cause-and-effect relationship: allowing one social injustice to flourish
results inevitably in other social injustices.
Please consider these other direct cause-and-effect relationships:
The Worldwatch Institute estimates one pound of steak from a steer raised in
a feedlot costs: five pounds of grain, a whopping 2,500 gallons of water,
the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline, and about 34 pounds of
topsoil.
Thirty-three percent of our nation's raw materials and fossil fuels go into
livestock destined for slaughter. In a vegan economy, only two percent of
our resources will go to the production of food.
"It seems disingenuous for the intellectual elite of the first world to
dwell on the subject of too many babies being born in the second- and
third-world nations while virtually ignoring the overpopulation of cattle
and the realities of a food chain that robs the poor of sustenance to feed
the rich a steady diet of grain-fed meat."
--Jeremy Rifkin, pro-life AND pro-animal author, Beyond Beef: The Rise and
Fall of the Cattle Culture, and president of the Greenhouse Crisis
Foundation
According to the editors of World Watch, July/August 2004:
"The human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually
every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human
future--deforestization, topsoil erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and
water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the
destabilization of communities and the spread of disease.
Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, similarly says in the
February 1995 issue of Harmony: Voices for a Just Future (a peace and
justice periodical on the religious left):
"...the survival of our planet depends on our sense of belonging -- to all
other humans, to dolphins caught in dragnets to pigs and chickens and calves
raised in animal concentration camps, to redwoods and rainforests, to kelp
beds in our oceans, and to the ozone layer."
Is ending abortion "work"? Or is it merely ceasing to do evil, as the
prophet Isaiah (1:11,15) says, when quoting God Himself attacking animal
sacrifice?
Opponents of global warming, global hunger, the energy, environmental,
population and water crises aren't offended when told veganism (ceasing to
kill animals) is the solution to each of their respective crises.
Perhaps it's time pro-lifers take a serious look at animal rights as THE
political strategy for ending the abortion crisis!
(Even with sentience, rather than species membership, as the criterion for
personhood, most abortions would have to be prohibited.)
****
I understand Christians aren't interested in being "converted" to another
religion! Animal rights, as a secular, moral philosophy, may appear to be at
odds with traditional religious thinking (e.g., human "dominion" over other
animals), but this is equally true of:
...democracy and representative government in place of monarchy and belief
in the divine right of kings; the separation of church and state; the
abolition of (human) slavery; the emancipation of women; birth control; the
sexual revolution; LGBT rights...
...all social progress since the end of the Dark Ages and the beginning of
the Age of Enlightenment...social progress even conservative Christians take
for granted!
Some of the greatest figures in human history have been in favor of ethical
vegetarianism and animal rights. These include:
Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas Gandhi, Alice
Walker, George Bernard Shaw, Robert Browning, Percy Shelley, Voltaire,
Thomas Hardy, Rachel Carson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Victor Hugo, John Stuart
Mill, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Pythagoras, Susan B. Anthony, Albert
Schweitzer, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Gertrude Stein, Frederick Douglass,
Francis Bacon, William Wordsworth, the Buddha, Mark Twain, and Henry David
Thoreau.
****
Abraham Lincoln once said: "I care not for a man’s religion whose dog or cat
are not the better for it.
Some of the most distinguished figures in the history of Christianity were
vegetarian. A partial list includes:
St. James, St. Matthew, Clemens Prudentius, Origen, Tertullian, Clement of
Alexandria, St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, St. Jerome, Aegidius,
St.Benedict, Boniface, St. Richard of Wyche, St. Filippo Neri, St. Columba,
John Wray, Thomas Tryon, John Wesley, Joshua Evans, William Metcalfe,
General William Booth, Ellen White, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, and Reverend
V.A. Holmes-Gore.
In a 1989 interview with the now-defunct Animals' Agenda, Reverend Andrew
Linzey, an Anglican clergyman, said:
"We treat animals today precisely as we treated slaves, and the theological
arguments are often entirely the same or have the same root. I believe the
movement for animal rights is the most significant movement in Christianity,
morally, since the emancipation of the slaves. And it provides just as many
difficulties for the institutional church..."
The International Network for Religion and Animals was founded in 1985.
Since then, numerous books have been written on animals and theology,
including:
The Vegetarianism of Jesus Christ: the Pacifism, Communalism and
Vegetarianism of Primitive Christianity; Food for the Spirit: Vegetarianism
and the World Religions; The Souls of Animals; Replenish the Earth; Of God
and Pelicans; Is God A Vegetarian?; God's Covenant with Animals; They Shall
not Hurt or Destroy; The Lost Religion of Jesus; Good News for All
Creation;Vegetarian Christian Saints; The Dominion of Love; Good Eating; Of
God and Dogs; Every Creature a Word of God; School of Compassion, etc.
All of this biblical scholarship by Christian vegetarians and vegans (and
their friends in the non-Abrahamic faiths), trying to reconcile biblical
tradition with animal rights, would be unnecessary if the other side would
treat animal rights as a secular civil rights issue applicable to
**everyone** -- including atheists and agnostics -- as they view their own
(sectarian?) opposition to abortion.
Nor is anyone preventing pro-life Christians from listening to the
vegetarian and vegan voices (past and present) in their own biblical
tradition.
In the April 1995 issue of Harmony: Voices for a Just Future, a peace and
justice periodical on the religious left, Catholic civil rights activist
Bernard Broussard concludes:
"...our definition of war is much too limited and narrow. Wars and conflicts
in the human kingdom will never be abolished or diminished until, as a pure
matter of logic, it includes the cessation of war between the human and
animal kingdoms.
"For, if we be eaters of flesh, or wearers of fur, or participants in
hunting animals, or in any way use our might against weakness, we are
promoting, in no matter how seemingly insignificant a fashion, the spirit of
war."
Nor is anyone preventing pro-life Christians from listening to vegetarians
and vegans throughout history!
The Table of Contents to Rynn Berry's 1993 book, Famous Vegetarians and
Their Favorite Recipes: Lives & Lore from Buddha to the Beatles, includes:
Pythagoras; Gautama the Buddha; Mahavira; Plato (and Socrates); Plutarch;
Leonardo the Vinci; Percy Shelley; Count Leo Tolstoy; Annie Besant; Mohandas
Gandhi; George Bernard Shaw; Bronson Alcott; Adventist physician Dr. John
Harvey Kellogg; Henry Salt; Frances Moore Lappe; Isaac Bashevis Singer;
Malcolm Muggeridge, and Brigid Brophy.
Nor is anyone preventing pro-life Christians from listening to secular
vegetarians and vegans today!
"A world of authors, philosophers, and scientists -- including Sir Isaac
Newton, Albert Einstein, St. Francis of Assisi, George Bernard Shaw, Mark
Twain, and Alice Walker -- are or were vegetarians. Nowadays, there are
countless celebrities -- actors, writers, athletes, thinkers -- who have
embraced the ecological sanity and compassion of the vegetarian diet.
"A number of these people have been outspoken. Among celebrity vegetarians
are:
"Film stars Orlando Bloom, Liv Tyler, Brad Pitt, Richard Gere, Jude Law,
Josh Hartnett, Gwyneth Paltrow, Steve Martin, Alec Baldwin, Drew Barrymore,
Ryan Gosling, Kim Basinger, and Dustin Hoffman.
"Recording artists Dr. Dre, the B52s, Paul and the late Linda McCartney,
Chrissie Hynde, Joaquin Phoenix, Andre3000 Meatloaf, Peter Gabriel, kd lang,
Elvis Costello, and Melissa Etheridge.
"Models Brooke Shields, Christy Turlington, Cindy Jackson, and Christie
Brinkley.
"Sports stars Hank Aaron, B.J. Armstrong, Andreas Cahling, Sally Eastall,
Sylvia Cranston, Chris Campbell, Aaron Pryor, Edward Moses, Robert de
Castella, Anton Innauer, and Killer Kowalski."
--excerpted from The Higher Taste: A Guide to Gourmet Vegetarian Cooking and
a Karma-Free Diet (Bhaktivedanta Book Trust: 2006).
Nor is anyone preventing these Christians from joining any number of secular
animal rights and welfare organizations: People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals (PETA); In Defense of Animals (IDA); Friends of Animals (FoA); Last
Chance for Animals; Mercy for Animals; Vegan Action; Vegan Outreach, etc.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is challenging those who
think they can still be "meat-eating environmentalists" to go vegan, if they
really care about the planet.
peta2 is now the largest youth movement of any social change organization in
the world.
peta2 has 267,000 friends on MySpace and 91,000 Facebook fans.
A few years ago, PETA was the top-ranked charity when a poll asked teenagers
which nonprofit group they would most want to work for. PETA won by more
than a two to one margin over the second place finisher, The American Red
Cross, with more votes than the Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity combined.
Pete Cohn of Veggie Jews (in San Francisco, CA) once told me Rabbi Michael
Lerner (founder, Network of Spiritual Progressives) focuses on Palestinian
issues, not animal rights! But in November 2007 (shortly before moving to
Israel), Pete said to me, "PETA's not Jewish."
****
John Stuart Mill observed, "The reason for legal intervention in favor of
children apply not less strongly to the case of those unfortunate slaves —
the animals."
In his book, Christianity and the Rights of Animals, Reverend Andrew Linzey,
an Anglican priest, notes that "In some ways, Christian thinking is already
oriented in this direction. What is it that so appalls us about cruelty to
children or oppression of the vulnerable, but that these things are
betrayals of relationships of special care and special trust? Likewise in
the case of animals who are mostly defenseless before us."
The issue of whether or not the unborn are persons being denied rights,
executed, and even treated as tools for medical research, the way we once
treated minorities, slaves, indigenous people, etc. and the way we currently
treat other animals, is distinct from discussing the social factors
(poverty, discrimination, etc.) which cause women to seek abortion in the
first place.
For a discussion of the latter, I would refer you to pro-life feminist
literature.
Personhood must be resolved before we can discuss whether abortion should be
legal or illegal.
The abortion debate centers on the personhood or moral status of the unborn,
and the extent of individual and/or marital privacy. Therefore...
The abortion debate is an appropriate forum for discussion of animal issues!
In the cases of animal rights and abortion, we're discussing extending our
circle of compassion to embrace an excluded class of beings: beings on the
fringes of our moral community which are accorded only marginal personhood,
often inconsistent at best.
The unborn, for example, are considered persons if they are "wanted," and
are otherwise regarded as insentient "tissue" to be discarded. Animals like
pets, are considered part of the family, whereas other animals are
considered "food" or tools for medical research.
Ingrid Newkirk, Executive Director of People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals (PETA), said at the Festival for the Animals in San Francisco, CA on
June 14, 1992, that in previous centuries, Native Americans were killed for
"sport."
(Vegan labor leader Cesar Chavez spoke at that festival as well.)
Christian writer C.S. Lewis compared vivisection (animal experimentation)
with Nazi physicians experimenting upon concentration camp prisoners.
Isaac Bashevis Singer has compared the killing of 50 billion animals every
year to the Nazi Holocaust, saying for the animals, "it is an eternal
Treblinka." The phrase "eternal Treblinka" became the title of Charles
Patterson's 2002 book comparing humanity's mistreatment of animals with the
Nazi's "final solution."
In The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery, author Marjorie Spiegel
quotes former Alameda County supervisor John George pointing out that black
Americans were the first laboratory animals in America.
In a 1979 interview with vegetarian historian Rynn Berry, civil rights
leader Dick Gregory has also expressed the opinion that the plight of the
poor will improve as humans cease to slaughter animals:
"I would say that the treatment of animals has something to do with the
treatment of people. The Europeans have always regarded their slaves and the
people they have colonized as animals."
PETA employee Dan Matthews compares seeing a fish caught on a hook writhing
in terror with his own cowering in fear at the hands of gay bashers in his
autobiography, Committed.
Pro-choice feminist writer and Christian theologian Carol J. Adams (she has
a Master's degree from the Harvard Divinity School) compares the way humans
oppress other animals with the way the patriarchy oppresses women (including
domestic violence) in her 1991 book, The Sexual Politics of Meat.
Comparisons between humanity's treatment of other animals and the treatment
of oppressed classes of humans are familiar, and I drew a comparsion between
the killing of animals and the killing of unborn children in my 2006 book,
The Liberal Case Against Abortion.
The issue isn't just vegetarianism out of kindness to animals or even ending
global hunger or concern for the environment -- it goes deeper than that.
We're talking about the systematic oppression and subjugation of other
animals.
John Stuart Mill wrote:
"The reasons for legal intervention in favor of children apply not less
strongly to the case of those unfortunate slaves -- the animals."
Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals (ASPCA), successfully prosecuted a woman for child abuse in 1873,
at a time when children had no legal protection, under the then currently
existing animal protection statutes. This case started the child-saving
crusade around the world.
Cardinal John Heenan wrote in 1970:
"Animals...have very positive rights because they are God's creatures...Only
the perverted are guilty of deliberate cruelty to animals or, indeed, to
children."
UC Berkeley law professor John T. Noonan, Jr. compares the suffering of
animals with the suffering of (born and unborn) children, and the humane
response in each case:
"...if you will do this for an animal, why not for a child?...There are no
laws which regulate the suffering of the aborted like those sparing pain to
dying animals...Can human beings who understand what must be done for
animals and what cannot be done for unborn humans want this inequality of
treatment to continue?
"...we are bound to animals as fellow creatures, and as God loves them out
of charity, so must we who are called to imitate God. It is a sign not of
error or weakness but of Christlike compassion to love animals. Can those
who feel for the harpooned whale not be touched by the situation of the
salt-soaked baby?"
And the converse is equally true: Can those calling themselves "pro-life,"
claiming the "respect life" and believe in the "sanctity-of-life" respect
the lives and rights of animals?
I'm told Democrats For Life of America (DFLA) held a vote several years ago
on whether or not to include animal rights on the agenda, but there weren't
enough pro-animal votes at the time for animal rights to be included. That's
democracy.
At least animal rights are being given serious discussion in DFLA, and maybe
pass when brought up for discussion again.
Democrats For Life of America, 601 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, South Building,
Suite 900, Washington, DC 20004 (202) 220-3066
****
Like the 19th and 20th century movements for women's rights and civil
rights, there are parallels between animal rights and prenatal rights (the
rights of unborn children).
I wrote in my 2006 book, The Liberal Case Against Abortion:
The case for animal rights and vegetarianism should be readily
understandable to the millions of Americans opposed to abortion on demand.
"Although I may disagree with some of its underlying principles," writes
pro-life activist Karen Swallow Prior, "there is much for me, an
anti-abortion activist, to respect in the animal rights movement.
"Animal rights activists, like me, have risked personal safety and
reputation for the sake of other living beings. Animal rights activists,
like me, are viewed by many in the mainstream as fanatical wackos,
ironically exhorted by irritated passerby to 'Get a Life!'
"Animal rights activists, like me, place a higher value on life than on
personal comfort and convenience, and in balancing the sometimes competing
interests of rights and responsibilities, choose to err on the side of
compassion and nonviolence."
Both the anti-abortion and animal rights movements consider their cause a
form of social progress, like the abolition of human slavery or the
emancipation of women. Leaders in both movements have even compared
themselves to the abolitionists who sought to end human slavery.
Dr. J.C. Willke, former head of National Right to Life, entitled a book
Abortion and Slavery. Like abortion opponents drawing a parallel between
the Dred Scott decision and Roe v. Wade, Dr. Tom Regan also draws a parallel
between human and animal slavery in The Case for Animal Rights:
"The very notion that farm animals should continue to be viewed as legal
property must be challenged. To view them in this way implies that we
cannot make sense of viewing them as legal persons. But the history of the
law shows only too well, and too painfully, how arbitrary the law can be on
this crucial matter. Those humans who were slaves were not recognized as
legal persons in pre-Civil War America.
"There is no reason to assume that because animals are not presently
accorded this status that they cannot intelligibly be viewed in this way or
that they should not be. If our predecessors had made this same assumption
in the case of human slaves, the legal status of these human beings would
have remained unchanged."
Each movement sees itself extending human rights to an excluded class of
beings. Each movement claims to be speaking on behalf of a class of beings
to defend themselves from oppression. Each movement compares the mass
destruction of, in one case the unborn, and in the other case, the mass
killing of animals, to the Nazi Holocaust.
Each movement has a component that engages in nonviolent civil disobedience
and each has its militant faction: Operation Rescue and the Animal
Liberation Front. Each has picketed the homes of physicians who either
experiment upon animals or perform abortions. The controversial use of
human fetal tissue and embryonic stem cells for medical research brings
these two causes even closer together.
Each movement is usually depicted in the popular news media as extremists,
fanatics, terrorists, etc. who violate the law. But each movement also has
its intelligentsia: moral philosophers, physicians, clergymen, legal
counsel, etc.
Feminist writer Carol J. Adams notes the parallels between the two
movements: "A woman attempts to enter a building. Others, massed outside,
try to thwart her attempt. They shout at her, physically block her way,
frantically call her names, pleading with her to respect life. Is she
buying a fur coat or getting an abortion?"
The Fur Information Council of America asks: "If fashion isn't about
freedom of choice, what is? Personal choice is not just a fur industry
issue. It's everybody's issue."
Like the abortion debate, lines are drawn. "Freedom of choice" Vs Taking an
innocent life. "Personal lifestyle" vs. violating another's rights.
Animal rights activists have even proven themselves to be "anti-choice"
depending upon the issue. A 1994 letter in The Animals' Voice Magazine, for
example, states:
"Exit polls in Aspen, Colorado, after the failed 1989 fur ban was voted on,
found that most people were against fur but wanted people to have a choice
to wear it. Instead of giving in, we should take the offensive and state in
no uncertain terms that to abuse and kill animals is wrong, period!
"There is no choice because another being had to suffer to produce that
item...an eventual ban on fur would be impossible if we tell people that
they have some sort of 'choice' to kill...remember, no one has the 'right
to choose' death over life for another being.
Similarly, a 2003 letter in Veg-News reads:
"I did have some concerns about (the) Veg Psych column which asserted that
we must respect a non-vegan's 'right to choose' her/his food.
"While I would never advocate intolerance (quite the opposite actually),
arguing that we have a 'right to choose' when it comes to eating meat, eggs,
and dairy is akin to saying we have a 'right to choose' to beat dogs, harass
wildlife, and torture cats.
"Each is a clear example of animal cruelty, whether we're the perpetrators
ourselves, or the ones who pay others to commit the violence on our behalf.
Clearly, we have the ability to choose to cause animal abuse, but that
doesn't translate into a right to make that choice."
Recognizing the rights of another class of beings, of course, limits our
freedoms and our choices, and requires a change in our personal lifestyle.
The abolition of (human) slavery is good example of this. Both movements,
however, appear to be imposing their own personal moral convictions upon the
rest of our secular society.
Animal rights activists point out the health hazards associated with meat,
fish, eggs, and dairy products, while anti-abortion activists try to educate
the public about the link between abortion and breast cancer.
The threat of "overpopulation" is frequently used to justify abortion as
birth control. On a vegan diet, however, the world could easily support a
population several times its present size. The world's cattle alone consume
enough to feed 8.7 billion humans.
Both movements use similar political economic boycotting, displaying graphic
photos or videos of abortion victims or tortured animals, speaking of
respecting life and of compassion, etc.
Both movements cite studies that unnecessary violence towards an oppressed
class of beings leads to worse forms of violence in human society -- this is
known as the 'slippery slope.' The term was coined by Malcolm Muggeridge, a
pro-life vegetarian.
Anti-abortion activists, for example, consider abortion the ultimate form of
child abuse, and claim that since abortion was legalized, child abuse rates
have risen dramatically. Acceptance of abortion, they argue, leads to a
devaluation of human life, and paves the way towards acceptance of
infanticide and euthanasia.
Animal rights activists, likewise, compare the lives of animals to those of
young human children, and insist that a lack of respect for the rights of
animals brutalizes humans into insensitivity towards one another.
In a 1979 essay entitled "Abortion and the Language of the Unconscious,"
contemporary Hindu spiritual master Ravindra-svarupa dasa (Dr. William
Deadwyler) wrote:
"A (spiritually) conscious person will not kill even animals (much less very
young humans) for his pleasure or convenience. Certainly the
unconsciousness and brutality that allows us to erect factories of death for
animals lay the groundwork for our treating humans in the same way."
Vegan author John Robbins writes in his Pulitzer Prize nominated Diet for a
New America (1987):
"The way we treat animals is indicative of the way we treat our fellow
humans. One Soviet study, published in Ogonyok, found that over
87% of a group of violent criminals has, as children, burned, hanged, or
stabbed domestic animals. In our own country, a major study by Dr. Stephen
Kellert of Yale University found that children who abuse animals have a much
higher likelihood of becoming violent criminals."
A 1997 study by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals (MSPCA) reported that children convicted of animal abuse are five
times more likely to commit violence against other humans than are their
peers, and four times more likely to be involved in acts against property.
Pro-lifers who kill animals are thwarting their own cause!
Russell Weston Jr., tortured and killed twelve cats: burned and cut off
their tails, paws, ears; poured toxic chemicals in their eyes to blind them;
forced them to ingest poison, hung them from trees (the noose loose enough
to create a slow and painful death.) Later killed two officers at the U.S.
Capitol in Washington, DC.
Jeffery Dahmer staked cats to trees and decapitated dogs. Later he
dissected boys, and kept their body parts in the refrigerator. He murdered
seventeen men.
Kip Kinkle shot 25 classmates and killed several in Springfield, Oregon. He
killed his father and mother. He said he once blew up a cow. He set a live
cat on fire and dragged the innocent creature through the main street of
town. His classmates rated him as "Most Likely to Start World War Three."
As a boy, Albert De Salvo, the "Boston Strangler," placed a dog and cat in a
crate with a partition between them. After starving the animals for days, he
removed the partition to watch them kill each other. He raped and killed
thirteen women by strangulation. He often posed bodies in a shocking manner
after their murders.
Richard Allen Davis set numerous cats on fire. He killed all of Polly Klaas'
animals before abducting and murdering Polly Klaas, aged twelve, from her
bedroom.
After sixteen-year-old Luke Woodham mortally stabbed his mother, killed two
classmates and shot seven others, he confessed to bludgeoning his dog
Sparkle with baseball bats and pouring liquid fuel down her throat and to
set fire to her neck. "I made my first kill today," he wrote in his
court-subpoenaed journal. "It was a loved one...I'll never forget the howl
she made. It sounded almost human."
In June 1998, Woodham was found guilty of three murders and seven counts of
aggravated assault. He was sentenced to three life sentences and an
additional twenty years for each assault.
Theodore Robert Bundy, executed in 1989 for at least fifty murders, was
forced to witness a grandfather who tortured animals. Bundy later heaped
graves with animal bones.
David Berkowitz, "Son of Sam," poisoned his mother's parakeet out of
jealousy. He later shot thirteen young men and women. Six people died and
at least two suffered permanent disabilities.
Keith Hunter Jesperson, the "Happy Face Killer," bashed gopher heads and
beat, strangled and shot stray cats and dogs. He is known to have strangled
eight women.
He said: "You're actually squeezing the life out of these animals...Choking
a human being or a cat--it's the same feeling...I'm the very end result of
what happens when somebody kills an animal at an early age."
Carroll Edward Cole, executed in 1985 for an alleged 35 murders and reputed
to be one of the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history, confessed
that his first act of violence was to strangle a puppy under the porch of
his house.
Robert Alton Harris murdered two sixteen-year-old boys, doused a neighbor
with lighter fluid and tossed matches at him. His initial run-in with police
was for killing neighborhood cats.
Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, which launched the modern day
environmental movement, wrote:
"Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is whether its
victim is human or animal we cannot expect things to be much better in this
world. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any
living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic
delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity."
In a December 1990 letter to Eric Mills of Action For Animals, vegan labor
leader Cesar Chavez similarly wrote:
"Kindness and compassion towards all living things is a mark of a civilized
society. Conversely, cruelty, whether it is directed against human beings or
against animals, is not the exclusive province of any one culture or
community of people. Racism, economic deprival, dog fighting and
cockfighting, bullfighting and rodeos are cut from the same fabric:
violence. Only when we have become nonviolent towards all life will we have
learned to live well ourselves."
Mother Teresa, honored for her work among the poor with the 1979 Nobel Peace
Prize, wrote in 1992 to Marlene Ryan, a former member of the National
Alliance for Animals. Her letter reads:
"I am praying for you that God’s blessing may be with you in all that you
are doing to create concern for the animals which are often subjected to
much cruelty. They, too, are created by the same loving Hand of God which
created us. As we humans are gifted with intelligence which the animals
lack, it is our duty to protect them and to promote their well being.
"We also owe it to them as they serve us with such wonderful docility and
loyalty. A person who shows cruelty to these creatures cannot be kind to
other humans also. Let us do all we can to become instruments of peace—where
we are—the true peace that comes from loving and caring and respecting each
person as a child of God—my brother—my sister."
Pro-lifers have reason to be especially concerned about violence towards
animals. Animals are sentient beings possessing many mental capacities
comparable to those of young human children. If we fail to see them as part
of our moral community, how will we ever embrace humans in their earliest
stages of development?
Anti-abortionists look in horror as an entire class of humans are
systematically stripped of their rights, executed, and even used as tools
for medical research. Yet this is what we humans have been doing to animals
for millennia.
Marjorie Spiegel, author of The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal
Slavery, writes: "All oppression and violence is intimately and ultimately
linked, and to think that we can end prejudice and violence to one group
without ending prejudice and violence to another is utter folly."
****
On the surface, not eating animal products sounds like a roundabout solution
to the abortion crisis.
However, John Robbins, author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated Diet for a New
America (1987), points out that the Rainforest Action Network did not start
as an animal rights group. But when they discovered the real cause of
destruction of rainforests in Central America was the American fast-food
market, they called for a boycott of Burger King.
Vegan author John Robbins provides these points and facts in his Pulitzer
Prize nominated Diet for a New America (1987):
Half the water consumed in the U.S. irrigates land growing feed and fodder
for livestock. It takes 25 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat, but
2,500 gallons to produce a pound of meat. If these costs weren't subsidized
by the American taxpayers, the cheapest hamburger meat would be $35 per
pound!
Livestock producers are California's biggest consumers of water. Every tax
dollar the state doles out to livestock producers costs taxpayers over seven
dollars in lost wages, higher living costs and reduced business income.
Seventeen western states have enough water supplies to support economies and
populations twice as large as the present.
U.S. livestock produce twenty times as much excrement as the entire human
population, creating sewage which is ten to several hundred times as
concentrated as raw domestic sewage. Meat producers contribute to half the
water pollution in the United States.
A 2007 pamphlet put out by Compassion Over Killing similarly points out:
Nearly 75% of the grain grown and 50% of the water consumed in the U.S. are
used by the meat industry. (Audubon Society)
It takes nearly one gallon of fossil fuel and 5,200 gallons of water to
produce just one pound of conventionally fed beef. (Mother Jones)
In their 2007 book, Please Don't Eat the Animals, mother and daughter
Jennifer Horsman and Jaime Flowers write:
"Half of all fresh water worldwide is used for thirsty livestock. Producing
eight ounces of beef requires an unimaginable 25,000 liters of water, or the
water necessary for one pound of steak equals the water consumption of the
average household for a year.
"The Worldwatch Institute estimates one pound of steak from a steer raised
in a feedlot costs: five pounds of grain, a whopping 2,500 gallons of
water, the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline, and about 34 pounds of
topsoil.
"Thirty-three percent of our nation's raw materials and fossil fuels go into
livestock destined for slaughter. In a vegan economy, only two percent of
our resources will go to the production of food."
According to the editors of World Watch, July/August 2004:
"The human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually
every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human
future -- deforestization, topsoil erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and
water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the
destabilization of communities and the spread of disease."
Meat-eating pro-lifers and/or meat-eating pacifists saying, "First let's end
abortion and/or war, and then we'll move on to animals, are comparable to a
Green Party activist saying, "First let's end the water crisis, and then
we'll address animal issues."
If we address animals first, there won't be a water crisis!
****
Mostly religious in nature, the anti-abortion movement will need to become
completely secular, as it attempts to convince the courts, the legislatures,
philosophers, ethicists and universities that human zygotes and embryos
should be regarded as legal persons.
Conversely, the animal rights movement is secular and nonsectarian, but --
like the civil rights movement -- will need the inspiration, blessings and
support of organized religion to help end injustices towards animals.
The Reverend Marc Wessels, Executive Director of the International Network
for Religion and Animals (INRA), made this observation on Earth Day, 1990:
"It is a fact that no significant social reform has yet taken place in this
country without the voice of the religious community being heard. The
endeavors of the abolition of slavery; the women's suffrage movement; the
emergence of the pacifist tradition during World War I; the struggle to
support civil rights, labor unions and migrant farm workers; and the
anti-nuclear and peace movements have all succeeded in part because of the
power and support of organized religion. Such authority and energy is
required by individual Christians and the institutional church today if the
liberation of animals is to become a reality."
At a speech before the National Right to Life Convention in Cherry Hill, New
Jersey, on July 15, 1982, Reverend Richard John Neuhaus of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church said:
"...The mark of a humane and progressive society is an ever more expansive
definition of the community for which we accept responsibility...
"The pro-life movement is one with the movement for the emancipation of
slaves. This is the continuation of the civil rights movement, for you are
the champions of the most elementary civil, indeed human right -- simply the
right to be."
While there are indeed similarities between the present day anti-abortion
movement and the anti-slavery movement of centuries past, the pro-life
movement, actually, also has a lot in common with the animal protection
movement -- a fact which pro-lifers should readily acknowledge. The animal
rights movement should be supported by all caring Americans.
Ingrid Newkirk, Executive Director of People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals, admitted in a 1992 interview with conservative talk show host
Dennis Prager, that the animal rights movement is divided on the issue of
abortion.
Where should an animal rights activist stand with regards to abortion?
Mohandas Gandhi, India's great apostle of nonviolence, once wrote, "It seems
to me clear as daylight that abortion would be a crime."
C.S. Lewis and other Christians have acknowledged that denying rights to
animals merely because they do not exhibit the same level of rational
thought most humans exhibit upon reaching full development means denying
rights to the mentally handicapped, the senile, and many other classes of
humans as well. Herein lies the basis for better understanding and
cooperation between two movements seeking liberty and justice for all.
As early as 1988, bioethicist Art Caplan saw parallels between animal rights
and prenatal rights. He was worried: if we give rights to animals, will we
have to give rights to the unborn, to be consistent? "That's going to be the
end of abortion!" he exclaimed.
In their 1993 article, "The American Left Should Support Animal Rights: A
Manifesto," which originally appeared in the now-defunct Animals' Agenda,
Anna Charlton, Sue Coe and Gary Francione similarly wrote:
"A frequent concern voiced by animal rights advocates involves abortion.
Some animal advocates think that recognition of animal rights means
opposition to abortion..."
****
Bryan Kemper of StandTrue Ministries wrote on August 23, 2007:
I am disgusted that we as a nation are so outraged over dog fighting while
thousands of babies are being mutilated daily. Michael Vick could have
invested his money into an abortion clinic and he would not be in trouble,
in fact he would be protected. It may be against federal law to inflict
cruelty on animals but it is perfectly fine according to the law to
dismember little baby boys and girls any time in the first nine months of
their lives.
"I am horrified by dog fighting just like most people; I think it is a
barbaric practice and should be illegal. I am not, however, okay with the
fact that our federal government allows more protection to a dog than a
human person. It is absolutely asinine that we as a society can get in an
uproar about dog fighting and still allow the destruction of almost 4,000
precious children each day.
"Organizations like PETA are in their own words, 'bellowing for strong
action on behalf of dogs.'
"I wonder if PETA would support the NFL if they made rules against its
players being involved in paying so called 'doctors' to kill their own
children. John Rolfe, a writer for Sports Illustrated wrote, 'Only a
drooling, spiral-eyed sadist would insist that drowning, hanging or
electrocuting innocent dogs should be an un-punishable offense, let alone
allowing them to rip each other to shreds for fun and profit.'
"I wonder if he would include injecting saline into a baby while still in
the womb, or suctioning their body parts off with a hose into that
category. Where are we heading as a nation if we cannot protect the most
innocent and vulnerable citizens, the pre-born children, yet we can offer
such protection to dogs? Since when are dogs more human than babies?
"God have mercy on our nation, we are so blind. PETA is asking the public to
help demand that the NFL add cruelty to animals to its personal conduct
rules. I want to ask the public to ask PETA to demand the same protection
for babies in the womb. I challenge PETA to show some consistency in their
crusade against cruelty and work for the same protection for humans as it
does for animals.Call PETA at 757-622-PETA (7382) and ask them why they
won't stand up for the babies with the same passion they stand up for the
dogs."
The late Reverend Janet Regina Hyland (1933 - 2007), responded:
"Dear Bryan Kemper, You are certainly fighting the good fight against the
brutalization and slaughter of babies who are still in utero. And the
dedication and efforts of those engaged in this struggle will result in laws
that prohibit the scourge of abortion.
"God calls us to join forces against the brutality and violence that
surrounds us, but not all are called to the same cause.
"Some are called to direct their primary efforts against pedophiles and
sexual predators. Others are working to outlaw the domestic violence that
finds its target in children and women. And still others work to end the
brutalization of helpless animals.
"Just as you acknowledge being horrified by dog-fighting, you must allow
that many people who belong to groups like PETA are outraged at the
brutality of abortion. And the fact that there are laws that provide
penalties for animal abuse should not discourage or anger you. People have
been fighting for laws against animal cruelty for more than a hundred years,
and those efforts are now paying off.
"Your efforts are challenging the status quo and will ultimately result in
laws against abortion. We all need to learn from those who struggle to end
the suffering and untimely deaths caused by various illnesses.
"People who direct their major efforts against cancer do not demean the work
of those whose primary concern is ending the suffering of diabetes or
asthma. They understand that they are all working, in different venues, to
end the scourge of disease.
"In the same way, those of us who actively working to end the suffering and
death caused by various kinds of brutality and violence in the world, need
to understand that each of us are doing the work to which to which we have
been called. And we do not have to denigrate the efforts of those whose
calling is different from our own.
"In the love of the Lord, Rev. J.R. Hyland, IMF"
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