Most vegans I know aren't at all into animal rights. It's two seperate things. Some are, the really serious ones.

Being vegan has nothing to do with having abortions either.

Really dude, are these actually thought-out questions or were you stoned?

I'm not sure what the vegan position is on seeing-eye dogs, but People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) "focuses its attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: on factory farms, in laboratories, in the clothing trade, and in the entertainment industry."

Generally, pets, and by extension, seeing-eye dogs, are viewed as "part of the family" by the majority of the animal rights community. Although PETA takes a dim view of puppy farms, and those who fail to neuter their animals.

Essentially, veganism is about the exploitation of animals for our gain, but it has many factions, some of which are more extreme and likely to get pissed off over questions like Bryan's.

When it comes to abortion, most vegans, I think, would see it as a completely separate issue.

But the whole issue of owning pets throws up some difficult questions—is there hypocrisy in loving your kitten but not caring that the tumor-ridden pig you're eating was shunted about with a shock-prod for the duration of its life?

I'm sure this is something I should know by now- but.... so on the neutering thing- is it frowned upon to not neuter pets for over-population reasons, or is horniness causing pain and misery for the animal? Obviously with cats running about on the loose getting them fixed is desirable- but for dog-owners, I don't really see the need for a procedure. The average dog does occasionally escape- but I've yet to notice this being a huge problem.

Paula, if not concerned about the treatment of animals- other than having an aversion to lactose or just trying to be difficult- what would be the point of going vegan? It seems like the treatment of other living things is pretty key to the lifestyle.

In both the case of the kitty and the piggy, these are animals that bear only passing resemblance to their wild forebearers. These are critters that have been selectively bred, over the span of history, to fulfill the role that humans have designed them for -- cuddly companion and tasty meal, respectively.

Should animal rights activists make a distinction between wild critters that are just trying to mind their own business, and those that have been genetically modified to suit our lifestyle?

Yawn.

I hate these sorta fake ethical inquiries, which seem totaly smartassy. Being vegan means living a life of getting asked the most insane, and often offensive, questions from people looking to end all conversations with "but steak tastes good maaaaannn!"

Veganism is a personal choice, and it seems ridiculous to pester Vegans with questions about their take on rescue Saint Bernard's with small barrels of whiskey around their necks, or Carrier Pigeons in WWII or whatever.

Give it a fucking rest.

Dude, you sound really mixed up and angry. It's normal to fear and hate what you don't know. Though it usually is not the best way to win respect. I bet you don't even know a single vegan in real life.

Basically it sucks to be annally electricuted or skinned alive. I wouldn't wish that on any person or animal I know. But being someone's beloved animal like a seeing eye dog is not such a bad thing. I don't think my own dog would object to that kind of lifestyle. Just the fact that you use the example of a "seeing eye dog" to criticise vegans as being extreme and unreasonable tells me that you agree with us. That there is a big difference between the lifestyle of an animal on a fur farm and a seeing eye dog. Can you imagine if you have said. "Oh vegans are idiots, what is the offical vegan position on dogs that are anally electricuted and skinned alive for a useless product like fur?" You'd sound like a creep then wouldn't you?

There's no "official vegan position" on anything just like there's no "official meat eater's position" on anything either. We are individuals who live in your community just like you and your friends.

Hating what you don't know simply makes you look foolish and unresonable.

Seeing eye dog tastes best slow roasted and then BBQed.

I agree that the seeing eye dog question is stupid.

However, this statement, I disagree with: "When it comes to abortion, most vegans, I think, would see it as a completely separate issue."

I don't know how this could possibly be a separate issue. If being vegan means opposing violence and cruelty to sentient beings, with sentient meaning the ability to feel or perceive but not necessarily including the faculty of self awareness, then I can't possibly see how abortion is a "separate issue." The very definition of veganism leads one to logically conclude that the only possible choice a vegan could morally and ethically make would be to be pro-life and adamantly opposed to abortion, a procedure that causes lethal harm to a sentient being.

To the people here are poo-pooing the question originally opposed, tossing it aside as a "fake ethical question:" Quite honestly I think you are afraid to think about this issue, to really evaluate your ethical beliefs and moral values. Because if you did, you might find that you have an issue on your hands. If you are vegan and you are pro-choice, that is a moral dilemma that needs to be rectifed. Otherwise, yes, there's an element of hypocricy to your cause.

I don't think there's an ethical question regarding animals for food beyond reasonably humane treatment up to the moments leading to death.

It's easy to tell what nature intends an mammal to eat: look at its teeth and digestive system. A cow is designed to eat nothing but vegetable matter. A wolf is designed to eat primarily meat (most predators do eat a small amount of plant matter for nutrients not present or sufficiently abundant in flesh). Mankind is designed to be omnivorous. We may have veered too far toward the meat side of our diet, and it may be possible to live without meat by being conscious of what you are eating. However, none of this obscures the fact that people are omnivores and where you are living out Nature's Plan for your species, there is no ethical issue.

"If you are vegan and you are pro-choice, that is a moral dilemma that needs to be rectifed. Otherwise, yes, there's an element of hypocricy to your cause."

Bullshit. Pro Choice isn't necessarily Pro Abortion. But who cares. No position is perfect. We're all hypocrites in our own way. As Curtis Mayfield said: (Don't worry) If There's A Hell Below, We're All Going To Go.

I don't consider a young fetus a sentient creature, and below a certain age, no one reasonably can. But if only on the principle of least suffering, mixed with adult humans being able to control their own bodies (which is different than going out and killing an animal who is capable of living its life independently), an argument can be made for abortion. I don't value life for the mere sake of life - sometimes it's just a conglomeration of cells. I would also take a cat in to get a kitty abortion (a common procedure) - it's about REDUCING SUFFERING, and since 8 mllion pets are killed in shelters each year, bringing more to life just means killing more - it produces less suffering to abort them.

Seeing eye dogs are frequently not treated well, in training or in use. To the extent that they're just "tools" for humans, I wouldn't really be for that. Many blind people do not use them, and see no reason to. They use canes or other means. They honestly are not necessary. But I'm not about to go out and fight the abuses in that industry. Matt is correct about the places in which activists focus attention.

The idea is that animals have a reason for living OTHER than how they can serve humans, and deserve to live their lives without our constant control, abuse, and killing when we find them inconvenient or tasty.

I do think its a red herring to bring in the fringe issues that no one is really paying much attention to, when there are profound, obvious abuses that AR activists are fighting.

Abortion would really be a fairly minor issue to me in any case. How many abortions are there each year in the US? Not very many, comapared to the over 10 BILLION animals brutally raised and killed in the US alone for food each year. And millions tortured and killed in labs. In numbers and intensity of suffering, abortion is so minor. I'm not going out to protest dog abortions or the lesser abuses of animals, while there are vastly bigger and more pressing issues. I think the same for the human rights advocates: to spend your time fighting abortion rather than fighting for the well-being of children already here seems misguided, if your goal is reducing suffering (but I generally doubt that's the goal of very stringent anti-abortionists).

Veganism and animal activism seem to be about moral superiority and a victim complex from what I gather in this thread... the hostility, the ease in switching to combativeness-- where's the happy vegans I've known for so long, the kind that are like, "Oh, it's okay, have your burger, I brought hummus-- oh, you want some of this? Cool! Oh, I know you would, but it's alright. :)"

But yanno-- by law I'm native american, so that means I'm the ultimate victim. Give me back my land, where the buffalo roamed, and the deer and the antelope roamed. My home, my home on the range.

Oh really? Vegans don't feel victimized, they fight for the end to torture of innocent others simply because humans enjoy the taste of meat. It's a far less selfish cause than most that humans put their minds to. There's no big trick in fighting for yourself, it takes far more to fight for others, when you get shit for it too.

Why don't you learn about factory farming and see what you're contributing to? http://www.meetyourmeat.com

Who said vegans had to be accepting of others eating meat? If you had been an abolitionist, would you be accepting of the slaveholders? From all indications, if you eat meat, you would be a slaveholder, as you don't recognize oppression and abuse until it has ended (and up until that point, you participate). A far more "tolerant" veg than me should participate in this discussion though. I really don't "tolerate" animal abuse so you can shove another animal in your selfish mouth.

Yeah, bollocks. Go to Taco del Mar.

Matt, I really appreciate that you're trying to understand veganism and AR in its complexities (which aren't all that difficult, for someone making the effort without high defensiveness). You had a good answer above. Hope you stay vegan - it's not so hard, is it? :)

Quite frankly I am getting a semi-asshole tone from this comment, in that it seems to be nit-picking in order to find some kind of flaw in veganism, a common thing people do to avoid actually dealing with what IS consistent with veganism.

However...

- Seeing-eye dogs - there is no place in our society where dogs are "truly free" mostly because a) dogs have long been domesticated b) there is no wild habitat for them to roam in. Hence, if people are treating their dogs (any dogs) with respect and love, vegans do not have a problem with this as a rule

- Abortion -

There are several things that distinguish killing animals from aborting a fetus, although there are pro-life vegans as well as pro-choice vegans.

Here are some distinctions, however:

1) Animals can survive outside a host body; fetuses cannot.

2) Full-grown animals are doubtless more conscious than fetuses that would be aborted

3) With abortion there are two well-beings to be considered. Since the woman's health, freedom and ability to support herself may all be jeopardized by carrying a child to term, let alone raising it afterwards, and since she is the only one of the two who can survive on her own or who has much consciousness, her needs should trump that of the fetus.

4) If you're vegan from an environmental perspective there is total consistency in being pro-choice. We are already over-populated, and the last thing the world needs is another baby. I'm sorry, but it's true. Hence, both veganism and the right to choose benefit the environment.

p.s.

Being vegan is not about perfection - it's about doing the best we can with what we've got. Granting animals as much freedom and life as is available in this flawed world. Being as light on the environment as we can each day. Doing our best.

Too often, people who are not yet doing the best they can probably do like to sit back and poke at what they perceive as ethical inconsistencies or lack of complete perfection in individual vegan lifestyles, rather than getting up and starting to make a change themselves. This is easier for some people and it makes them feel like it's all pointless/stupid/inconsistent anyway. Well, I've got to say, if you wait your whole life trying to find a cause that doesn't have any gray areas or where all the people who practice it are "perfect" people, you're going to be waiting a long time to actually do anything.

And what's funny to me, about this particularly is that veganism is actually pretty consistent as a philosophy and lifestyle and there aren't nearly as many gray areas as when it comes to things like stopping poverty or war, etc. Veganism is both something that can help solve several problems at once (cruelty to animals, a host of the most pressing environmental problems, and many human health problems), and something that has no possible harmful effects that I know of. Nor is it difficult to implement, or start making a change, unlike so many other problems out there.

The greatest thing about veganism, to me, is that it allows people, each day, to make a difference in several areas of concern. There is no harmful result to it. It's just... good.

I don't know why people are so resistant to veganism. I'm not even sure why I was, although I think it had to do with feeling guilty somewhere deep down and feeling judged by my ex-husband when he went vegan first. He wasn't judging me at all, though; he was actually very kind and gentle to me.

I don't know where all this resistance comes from. I don't know why people find veganism to be so threatening/difficult/annoying, etc.

If there were a group of people out there who defined themselves as "against the abuse and killing of cats and dogs", everyone would find that totally normal, though unnecessary since most people are. How pigs and chickens and cows are any different in reality, I don't get anymore.

And groups of people out there who are: "against global warming" - that's viewed as totally normal, too. But tell those same people that Veganism is the #1 easiest and most effective way to halt global warming (and I have studies to back this up if anyone wants them), and they look at you like you're nuts.

Most of the time I don't even bother talking to people about veganism because we live in a society where it's polite to eat dead, tortured animals and talk about how tasty they are, but it's impolite to talk to people about the dead, tortured animals they're eating. It's polite to destroy the planet, but it's impolite to inform other people on how we might not destroy the planet.

If people wonder why vegans are angry/sad sometimes, it's because we left the Matrix, and the view from the other side is not so pretty.

Fortunately, however, the food is much better.

- Jen

I appreciate everyone's comment thus far, and for the most part am thankful for the introspections you have introducted to me. However, the fact of the matter remains, and this definition comes directly from wikipedia: "vegan oppose violence and cruelty to sentient beings." The definition of "sentient beings" (also from wikipedia) means: "the ability to feel or perceive but not necessarily including the faculty of self awareness."

Every single response so far refuses to acknowledge this simple fact regarding fetuses: A fetus is a sentient being without self awareness. Fetuses can feel and perceive, yet there is no self awareness.

To disregard this fact, or to say it is a "minor issue" is a refusal to acknowledge the question at hand. I'm not nitpicking, but I honestly cannot understand how a vegan can say with a straight face that they value life and the ethical treatment of all sentient beings and also be pro-choice.

I'm sorry, but it is adamantly clear to me, from what I see thus far from the response here, vegans pick and choose their morals, no matter if it contradicts the very definition of veganism that they aspire to become.
To call a shrimp a sentient being, but to refuse to acknowledge that a two month old fetus a sentient being is (in the words of other posters) bullshit. You are refusing to acknowledge a scientific fact in order to maintain your superficial moral superiority.

A PLANT perceives by minimal standards. A 2 week old fetus does not have the development to suffer or to feel pain.

Veganism, for me at least, is about minimizing suffering. I have no problem with animal abortions either. And if I could abort every farm and lab animal before it's ever born for you to stuff in your mouth and experiment on, that would be a mercy to those animals. It's about SUFFERING, dude. You have a different agenda.

I also support the euthanasia of the 8 million animals killed in shelters each year, because it's less cruel than sitting in stacked up cages for life, while another 8 million joins them each subsequent year. Of course if people would fucking spay and neuter, the problem wouldn't even exist.

You can't seem to grasp that veganism isn't about every single living cell is an entity that must be kept alive. Once again, it's about MINIMIZING SUFFERING.

Try this one on for size...I'm vegan but I am also type 1 diabetic. I have to use animal byproduct produced synthetic human insulin or I will die. Now does that make me a blazing hypocrite? I ponder this all the damn time. :-(

I think if you context Veganism as a PERSONAL choice you can understand why someone can be Vegan and pro-choice. Do I believe in the sanctity of life? You bet. Do i believe I have the right to impose that view on others and remove their ability to have reign on their own reproductive system... NO WAY. It's not a double standard to be Vegan and Pro-Choice. Both respect an individual's right to make decisions about their own body. Now of course we can all debate the finer points of when life starts and such and how late is too late in a pregnancy...But that debate isn't specific to anything vegan.

Now seeing eye dogs, I'm all for them. The quality of life of a seeing eye dog is very very high. They are treated with the utmost respect and treated like a companion animal.

But that's my take. I am just one person. I don't speak for a Vegans everywhere nor should I.

It's also very easy for people to put Vegans on the spot about our views, but very few people who put us on the spot are willing to deal with the same level of scrutiny. I mean we're just people like you... We do make mistakes, do say things that sometimes conflict and are not perfect.

But I'd ask you a question in return. Why is it ok to torture, kill and consume one animal but not another. What makes a cow different from your pet? How can we as a species chose what animals its 'OK' to treat like a mass product and which aren't? If "Meat tastes so good" then why not eat your pet..

Dan -

A) The wikipedia definition of veganism is not THE definition of veganism, indeed that definition is in many ways a work in progress. But I would give my definition as: Refraining from causing unnecessary death or suffering to other sentient beings

B) I think it's perfectly legitimate to regard a "fetus" as not being a "being" yet, as it can not survive outside a host body.

C) Yes, a fetus may be sentient, at a certain point, but as I mentioned there are two sentient beings in this case. You could say that there are two beings in the case of eating meat, too, problem being that in most cases, the person thinking about eating meat does not need that meat and could make a better choice. A pregnant woman, however, may endanger her physical and mental health as well as her financial well-being simply by carrying a baby to term, let alone raising it. Additionally, there are feminist issues involved here. Women, unlike men, bear the burden of pregnancy in this society. In order for women to possess true equality they need to be able to control their own bodies. This issue is not at all present in the case of eating animals. Really, in that case there's the interest of pleasure on one side (a very small interest) and the interest of life and freedom on the other. The interests of a pregnant woman are much more pressing, the consciousness of the other party almost certainly much smaller.

D) The environmental argument is totally consistent as I mentioned above.

I mainly find efforts to find inconsistencies in veganism, however, to be strategies to avoid thinking about the consistencies and the parts that resonate. As far as I know the only philosophy out there that comes even close to being consistent is "Do Unto Others as You would have them do unto you." And even that is pretty flawed, because you could be some weird person who thinks it's great when people hit you in the head, and then you might go around hitting people in the head.

It's not about finding a perfectly consistent at all times philosophy. It's about being honest with one's self, thinking and making a real honest effort to do the least harm with our actions. Nit-picking seems to just distract from making any difference in the world.