To All Living Things

Does Harming the Animal Harm the Human Spirit?
by Kathy Gay

hose of us who have decided that a vegetarian way of life feels right and necessary probably have many different stories to tell of how we came to this decision. As much as anything else, I believe I came to it by way of my involvement in human rights. I simply applied to animals some of the principles that guide me in human rights.

I have been active in human rights work for nearly ten years. I think it defines who I am and what I believe in probably more than anything else I do. Along with many others I have protested to the executioners and the torturers that what they are doing to fellow human beings is wrong and must stop. It often seems that man's inhumanity to man knows no bounds. I can say the same for man's inhumanity to animals.

To me, the connection between a vegetarian (vegan) lifestyle and human rights and animal rights is obvious. I believe that animals have as much a right to be here as I do. I do not believe they were put here on earth so that I could eat them. No animal needs to be killed or tortured so that I can live. When I stopped eating animal flesh and anything that came from animals, when I freed myself of my dependence on the bodies of animals so that I could live, I freed myself as well. It was and is an intensely personal choice that acknowledges the rights of all living beings to live their lives, just as I have a right to live mine.

In a meat-eating culture like ours, my concern goes beyond the plight of the animals themselves. I wonder about the men and women who work in the slaughterhouses and on the factory farms. I wonder what it is like for them to first begin a job at one of these places of torture and death. I wonder if they are in any way sickened by what they see. And I wonder how long it takes before their hearts have become hardened to the suffering. Because that is what must happen. The hardening must set in, or else they could no longer do their jobs and get through the day.

For each day that they spend in such a place, how much compassion and humanity will they have lost? Will this loss spill over into other parts of their lives? These men and women deal with the carnage each day so that those who buy the meat neatly packaged at the supermarket can supposedly be free of all the ugliness. It is not only animal abuse. It is also human abuse that can sap the spirit.

I can also draw a connection between the meat-eating culture of the United States and actual human rights abuses. It is insidious and concerns the plight of the native peoples of the rainforests in Central and South America. Like most all indigenous peoples of the world, they have consistently been treated as second-class citizens in their own countries. They struggle against their governments and timber companies, miners, and ranchers to keep their land. The miners want to remove gold and minerals, the timber companies want to cut down the trees, and the ranchers need more and more grazing land for their beef cattle.

For speaking out and working against those who would take their lands from them, many indigenous land rights activists have "disappeared" or been killed by thugs hired by ranchers, miners and timber companies. In "Diet for a New America," John Robbins wrote of the destruction of the rainforests to provide grazing land for cattle that would in turn provide beef for the American fast-food market. According to the Meat Importers Council of America, the United States imports 10% of the beef it consumes, and over 90% of that comes from Central and South America. Just ask me if I think there is a connection between human rights abuses against native peoples of the rainforest and fast-food hamburgers, and I will tell you "yes." And if that isn't sad, I don't know what is.

Human rights, animal rights, and a vegetarian lifestyle. They are so closely intertwined for me now that I could never separate them. And I'll never go back to eating m**t.

"Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will never himself find peace."

-- Albert Schweitzer
(Nobel Peace Prize, 1952)

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Kathy Gay is a vegan and a member of Amnesty International for nearly 10 years, where she has worked on numerous campaigns. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is a business analyst for a leading California bank.

Kathy's column, To All Living Things, is a regular feature of VegSource On-Line Magazine.