Veganism on the death penalty and abortion?!
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I'm a vegan and pro-choice, pro-death penalty. They are completely different issues...
I'm a pro-choice vegan. Most vegans I've spoken to are also pro-choice. As another answerer said, vegans are usually liberal. I'm neutral on the subject of the death penalty.
Also, in relation to your egg comment, the eggs people eat are not fertilised. I assume (and hope) you understand the human female's menstrual cycle. Well, when chickens lay eggs, this is the same process human females go through at that special time of the month. A chicken's egg will only be fertilised if there is a rooster around to do the dirty deed - and no intelligent egg seller would let that happen! If you bit into a fertilised egg, you would sure as hell know about it, but the eggs humans choose for consumption are not fertilised. Please inform your friends of this also, I am growing tired of explaining this to people.
Oh no - I guess I'm a "hyprocrate". LOL
It varies from individual to individual, but I personally am pro-life and against the death penalty.
Also, vegans don't eliminate eggs from their diet because it is a "potential life." On the contrary, most eggs on the market are unfertilized. It's the conditions most hens are kept in, and the fact that almost all male chicks are killed, that make eggs an unacceptable part of a vegan diet.
There really is no consensus. I was pro-choice long before I became vegan, and I remain pro-choice (and really pro-contraception) to this day because I value actual lives over potential lives. I value the rights of the pregnant woman over the embryo/fetus she carries. And I believe that every child should be loved and wanted, but that isn't related to my veganism.
I also sometimes like to compare the number of abortions performed each year in the U.S.--about 1.5 million--to the number of animals killed every year for food in the U.S.--about 10 billion. And that these animals suffer for days, weeks, or months before a brutal death in a slaughterhouse.
The reason vegans object to eggs is not the potential chick--the hens are kept in battery cages and never see a rooster, so the eggs are not fertilized--but the way the hens are treated. There is also the issue of male baby layer chicks killed at birth because they are of no value to the egg industry and don't grow big enough fast enough to be of value to the meat industry.
As for the death penalty, my objection stems from the fact that 1) we are killing someone to show that killing is wrong and 2) some people sentenced to death have been exonerated when new evidence proved their innocence. We can always release someone wrongly convicted and sentenced to life from prison; we can't bring someone wrongly executed back to life.
I always wonder how someone can be pro-life and eat dead animals. Or be pro-death penalty. Or pro-war. Or against programs that help poor families.
Vegans, usually (but not always), are opposed to animal cruelty and exploitation. Neither capital punishment nor abortion have anything to do with this.
You might find that there's a correlation, in so far as people who are concerned about animal rights may also be the sort of people who tend to be concerned about the rights of others (in the same way that vegans may also be keen recyclers, perhaps), but there's no 1:1 relationship. They're separate issues.
I expect that many pro-lifers are so due to religious beliefs rather than tree-huggy reasons, the 'every sperm is sacred' (ie, breed as many ready-made believers as possible) mantra and all that.
There really is no "consensus" amongst vegetarians and vegans... each person regardless of diet holds their own opinion on all of these matters.
I am personally pro-choice. I have the right to choose to continue my pregnancy without outside intervention in that decision. Therefore, even if I would personally not make the choice that many women do make, they should be given that same right to choose to continue or terminate their own pregnancy. What is "right" for me may not be "right" for them.
As far as the death penalty is concerned, I do feel that there are certain acts for which you should lose your right to live within society, or to live at all (blatant acts of murder, rape, etc.). However, I do find it difficult to be able to ask a person to "pull the switch" so to speak, killing another human, whether or not that person is deserving of death (for what would I be doing to the switch-puller but making them no less a murderer themselves?). Obviously, I have not found a completely viable solution to this issue in my own mind yet, and I'm willing to hear any and all opinions on the subject.
This is basically what I would say just way better:
"Some animal advocates think that recognition of animal rights means opposition to abortion. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Abortion represents a unique moral problem that is replicated nowhere else in society. Even if the fetus is regarded as a rights-bearing "person" the reality is that this subservient right-holder lives inside the body of the primary right-holder, the mother. We can either leave the decision to terminate the pregnancy to the mother or we can leave the decision to some white male legislator or judge who cannot get pregnant. In our patriarchal society, those are the only choices that we have. In our view, opposition commits us to support freedom of choice" - Anna E. Charlton, Sue Coe and Gary Francione - "the American Left should support Animal Rights: A Manifesto"
George Carlin on Abortion (I always laugh so hard when listening too this)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvF1Q3Uid…
I couldn't post the text as it is too long but you can find it on the internets.
As far as the death penalty is concerned, I am against it. I don't see killing somebody as a punishment for a crime the state made up as being helpful to anybody. It is extremely costly and wasteful and doesn't stop crime nor does it stop violence or anything wrong with this society.
Pro-choice anti death penalty vegan because animals and humyns are not property
There's no vegan consensus. There are many, MANY different opinions for the many different vegans that exist. While I completely understand where it would make sense for someone who is vegan to be pro-life and anti-death penalty, I also don't think anyone should adopt certain beliefs just because they make sense. I am a vegan, pro-choice, anti-death penalty. I have my reasons for all of them. And they are reasons that make sense to me. And to those who are wondering, my veganism is a personal dietary choice, and I don't judge others for what they choose on this matter.
I am opossed to the death penalty simply because it is immoral. There is no need for it, lock a murderer up in jail for the rest of their life to silently suffer alone is more damage than killing someone. Also a lot of people can be rehabilitated and therefore understand their wrongdoings.
Abortion I feel is a personal opinion and has nothing to do with the fact that I don't eat meat. I'm still unsure but I believe if the child that is concieved is going to have a difficult life due to parents either not wanting it, being unable to provide for it, or it will be in danger then I am for abortion in very early stages. I believe adoption is the best method though, you can change a young family's life.
me
I'm a very strongly pro-choice and pro-death penalty vegan
I'm vegan and pro-choice for the same reasons:
I believe sentient creatures being used as PROPERTY,
whether it be animals by humans for every whim,
or women by the government as incubators,.
is abominable and unethical.
Vegans don't abstain from eating eggs because it's a "potential life".
Eggs, being non-sentient, do not have ethical interests,
and therefore no ethical rights to protect those interests.
We abstain from eating eggs because it involves the use of CHICKENS as egg-laying machines.
I personally don't afford violent criminal offenders the same rights-
those were forfeited when they chose to assault, harm, or kill someone.
They are completely different issues. Think about it from a rights-based perspective. The debate about eating meat/animal products weighs the animal's right to life and to be free from exploitation against humans' rights to please their taste buds. The death penalty debate weighs a criminal's right to life against the victim's/society's right to retribution. The abortion debate weights a fetus' right to life against the mother's right to do what she wants with her body. These issues do all involve the right to life, but they all have a different subject of that right (a non-human animal, a criminal, and a fetus, respectively), and they are all being weighed against different rights. So, the issues are distinct, and no combination of opinions on these issues is hypocritical. Within the vegan community, I would guess that most vegans are anti-death penalty and pro-choice, since vegans tend to be politically liberal. Personally, I'm vegan, pro-life, and anti-death penalty. I hope that makes sense.
Edit:
I'm glad my explanation seemed reasonable. Perhaps I shouldn't have said that the issues are "completely" different. Of course there are some similarities among the issues, as they all involve a right to life. My main point is really that any combination of opinions on the issues can be logically consistent. There's no belief on any of the issues that logically necessitates a certain belief on any of the other issues. Would you agree with me on that?
There is no vegan consensus.
People become vegan for a lot of different reasons, so I think it's possible for a person to be vegan yet still be pro-choice and pro-death penalty. However, if a person is vegan for philosophical and spiritual reasons, and in general believes in being anti-speciest and doing least harm, then it makes sense to me that in order to be consistent with one's philosophy, one must be pro-life and anti-death penalty.
For the record, I consider myself pro-choice because I believe that abortion should be safe and legal, yet I regard embryos and fetuses as living humans with inherent rights. I don't ever plan on having an abortion, but I would never dream of taking that right away from another woman. I believe that forcing a woman to have a baby she doesn't want to have is a very, very bad idea.
I am ambivalent about the application of the death penalty towards truly despicable people. I am generally very compassionate towards criminals - a lot of people are driven towards crime because of poverty, etc. and crime is a symptom of larger societal problems and ways that the world has failed the criminal in question. But once in a rare while a truly evil, mentally ill person comes along - and I know no one chooses to be like that, but what can you do about it, honestly? - who savagely murders multiple people. I really don't give two craps about what happens to those people. My only objection to the death penalty is fiscal. It's just too expensive. Plus, I don't want the wrong person being executed, and I don't want it being applied lightly. It should be very rarely applied.
I became vegan because I didn't want to support the cruelty of the factory farming industry. Farm animals are truly innocent, and they only impact our lives in the sense that we (well, not me) eat them. I think it's appropriate to think about them in a fundamentally different way then we think about unborn human children, or about hardened criminals.
That said, I do believe that everyone should strive to come up with a cohesive personal philosophy about the value of life and the inherent rights of all living beings.
It really varies.
I personally am pro-choice, because I feel that no one should dictate what another person does with her body. Pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion. And most, if not all, abortions are performed when the being is a blastula or a zygote, (aka a clump of non-sentient cells) not a baby or a fetus.
I oppose eating meat because it harms sentient beings. Abortion does not harm sentient beings.
Eggs have nothing to do with "potential life", since the eggs are unfertilised. Eggs are cruel because to produce eggs you must have hens, and to produce hens you must fertilise eggs, and 50% of the hatchlings will be males. These are killed within hours of hatching by being thrown into blenders or suffocated (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ--faib7…
I know vegans who are anti-abortion because they see it that all life is worth protecting. I am not anti-abortion because there are too many humans on this planet, and in the vast majority of abortions occur before the foetus could survive outside of the womb. From the biological perspective, a foetus is a parasite. Is it wrong to kill a tapeworm which is growing inside your body? Of course not, if you choose not to suffer from all the things that providing sustenance to a tapeworm brings. A foetus is the same, just because it will grow into a human baby if it is born why should it be different to any other organism carried by a woman if she does not want to carry it?
This is not really something which can be clearly discussed here, so I'll refer you to the relevant chapter in Peter Singer's book Practical Ethics. This is Utilitarian logic, and the whole book isn't great (there are some very dubious points regarding people with disabilities); but the majority of the stuff about animal rights and abortion is based on sound logic.
As for the death penalty, well I don't live in Iran or Afghanistan etc so of course it is not an issue for us. It is over 50 years since Australia executed somebody, and that guy was innocent. For every developed country in the world, capital punishment is something we used to do before we had proper human rights laws. Oh, except for America.
Edited to add:
The reason it is hypocritical for SOME anti-abortion protesters to eat meat is that they claim that abortion is wrong because it is a human life or they claim "all life is sacred" (I have literally heard this said) but then are happy to eat the flesh of a dead animal for dinner. This is an example of speciesism, ie putting the value of human life above other animals. Veganism seeks to regard humans not more or less than any other, but to value all animal life equally.
So it would be hypocritical of a vegan to oppose abortion in a cat or dog but not in a human, but it is consistent for them to either be for or against abortion based on some other logical foundation as this is independent to their veganism. However for a vegan who claims that "all life is sacred" opposing abortion is part of their perception of the vegan philosophy. I have friends who feel this way, personally I think it is the only justifiable position in opposition of abortion (but still illogical). Since there is no consensus on what is vegan (beyond the boycotting of the use of all animal products) then this dichotomy is merely a reflection on the diversity of opinions and motivations for being vegan. We have no authoritative guide book to refer to, hence we must form our opinions ourselves; and they aren't all going to be the same.
Hope this clears it up. :)
Veganism has nothing to do with sentient beings, do you talk to the trees? Abortion is the woman's to decide. Would the current Pope like to raise the unwanted children and orphans of the world at his house? Would you have me be friends with the man who murdered my brother, pre-meditated? Maybe go for for a veggie burger and some wheat grass smoothie to make me and him feel better?
Hi :)
There is no vegan consensus, because people are vegan for all different reasons, and to different extents within each reason :) We do not all, for example, believe that no sentient being should be harmed :) We're not Jainists ^_^
I am pro-choice, and against the death penalty :)
I just want to say that I haven't heard a vegan person say they don't eat eggs because it has the potential for life. They don't eat them because the farming conditions where the adult hens are, are so terrible. And for health reasons as well.
No, it does not.
Vegans tend to be more politically liberal, so I would expect that the majority of vegans would oppose the death penalty and be pro-choice.
Not all vegans have the same view on the death penalty and abortion.
Funny isn't it how vegan women think they have the right to get an abortion, but they turn right around and judge us for eating meat? I guess it is alright to kill babies, but not cows? Vegans are such hyprocrates. They only become vegan to feel superior and for elitist status symbol reasons.
abortion isn't murder, apparently its just a choice. the choice to kill someone that inconveniences you.
The vast majority of them seem to be very hypocritical on the abortion issue.