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Even PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk admits “We’re divided”
The long-awaited introduction of RU-486-based contraceptive dog and cat food has been delayed for at least 36 years, and may have been permanently forestalled by the use of RU-486 as Mifrepristone, the drug used to medically induce abortion, as ANIMALS 24-7 recently detailed in What RU-486 means for animals.
However, while most animal advocates might welcome access to contraceptive dog and cat food, this issue and the issue of access to abortion for human females are scarcely one and the same.
The animal rights movement, representing a cross-section of mainstream secular American society, is not “officially pro-choice,” but is divided on abortion.
Lillian & Dick Gregory.
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All-star lineup on the pro-life side
In a 1992 interview on Dennis Prager’s conservative talk show, when specifically asked about the animal rights position on abortion, Ingrid Newkirk, co-founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), admitted, “We’re divided.”
Former television game show host Bob Barker is a conservative Republican and an animal activist. Tony LaRussa of the Animal Rescue Foundation is a political conservative.
Vegan labor leader Cesar Chavez was pro-life. Vegan civil rights leader Dick Gregory was pro-life. Former Washington Post columnist Colman McCarthy, a devout pacifist, has expressed opposition to abortion, and in the 1980s was critical of Reverend Jesse Jackson for having changed sides on the issue.
Cesar Chavez & dog. (Cathy Murphy photo)
“Pro-Animal, Pro Life”
Dixie Mahy, past president of the San Francisco Vegetarian Society, has been vegetarian for sixty years, vegan for forty of those sixty years, and identifies herself as pro-life-and-pro-animal.
Matthew Scully, a conservative Catholic and former speechwriter for George W. Bush, identifies himself as “Pro-Animal, Pro-Life.”
Catholic Concern for Animals is pro-life-and-pro-animal. Reverend Frank Hoffman’s All Creatures Christian vegan website is pro-life-and-pro-animal.
Compassion for animals is a fundamental tenet of the Baha’i faith, which endorses vegetarianism, says abortion is more a matter of individual conscience, but concludes, without taking a position on abortion, that life should not be destroyed.
“Animals are like children”
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.”
Animals are like children.
Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, famously assigned ASPCA attorney Elbridge Thomas Gerry to prosecute a woman for child abuse in 1873 under the then existing New York state law against cruelty to animals, at a time when children had no legal protection.
Although the case was won in court on other grounds, it led to the first documented U.S. conviction for child abuse, and was instrumental in advancing the causes of both animal and child protection.
Mary Ellen Wilson testifies after rescue; Mary Ellen later; Etta Angell Wheeler, the social worker who brought her case to Henry Bergh.
Feminists For Life
In Christianity & the Rights of Animals, the Reverend Dr. Andrew Linzey writes: “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, and even more so, in the case of animals who are mostly defenseless before us.”
When told the animal rights movement is divided on abortion, Serrin Foster, executive director of Feminists For Life, said understandingly, “The Children’s Defense Fund is also divided on abortion.” Feminists For Life includes many vegetarians and vegans. Serrin identifies herself as a vegetarian.
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Hinduism, Buddhism, & Jainism
From 1992 through 2003, James Dawson, raised Catholic and now a Buddhist, published Live and Let Live, a pro-life / animal rights / libertarian newsletter. The ancient eastern reincarnationist religions Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism all predate Christianity, all oppose abortion, all teach ahimsa, or nonviolence towards humans and animals alike to the point of vegetarianism, all are vegan-friendly, and all teach that abortion and war are the karma for killing animals, and that therefore, we cannot end abortion nor bring about world peace until first we abolish the killing of animals.
This knowledge, however, does not rest with everyone. Not all pro-life-and-pro-animal people advocate the reincarnationist strategy for ending abortion and bringing about world peace. Shay Van Vlieman, founder of Vegans For Life in the late 1990s, said she doesn’t expect to see a vegan president in her lifetime: she would just be glad to elect a president who will work to overturn Roe v. Wade. And she insists she is not a Republican, but a libertarian!
Also during the late 1990s, Rachel MacNair, a Quaker pacifist, feminist, vegan, and past president of Feminists For Life, moderated an email list for pro-life vegetarians and pro-life vegans. Rachel is now a psychology professor, and has written several books on nonviolence.
Jesus driving the buyers and sellers of sacrificial animals from the Jerusalem temple, as painted by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609-1664).
The “consistent ethic” movement
Vegan congressman Dennis Kucinich, one of the most liberal members of Congress as a Democratic member of the House of Representatives from 1997 to 2013, was pro-life throughout most of his political career.
Pro-life vegetarians and pro-life vegans are found within the “consistent-ethic” movement: pro-lifers opposed to capital punishment. A significant number of “consistent-ethic” Christians were or are vegetarian or vegan, among them Rose Evans, Ruth Enero, Rachel MacNair, Albert Fecko, Carol Crossed, Bill Samuel, Mary Krane Derr, Mary Rider, and Father John Dear.
Mary Rider, a practicing Catholic, in 2002 wrote in Harmony: Voices for a Just Future, a “consistent-ethic” periodical:
“So we teach our children to walk softly on the earth and to embrace nonviolence as the only legitimate means of conflict resolution, on both a personal and a global level. We are aware of the excessive, privileged life we lead as educated, first world U.S. citizens, and of the responsibilities to which our privilege calls us. We try to live simply. We eat low on the food chain. We try to buy nothing new… We try to respect all life and carry that message forward in all we do… Because we value people and relationships over things… First world consumption kills people around the world… Pollution, environmental devastation, corrupt governments, war, sweatshops… all are a are a result of our desire to buy more at a lower price… We believe each person has a right to live a valued and respected life free from hunger and discrimination…”
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“How do abortion advocates — warning about overpopulation consuming the world’s resources — justify consuming animal products?”
The threat of overpopulation is frequently used to justify abortion as birth control. On a vegan diet, however, the world could easily support a human population several times its present size. The world’s cattle alone consume enough to feed over 8.7 billion humans.
Even if abortion advocates argue that shifting to a plant-based diet, a vegan diet isn’t enough to stave off the effects of overpopulation, in light of data showing depletion of energy, fresh water, land space, raw materials and resources, as well as the heavy contribution that humans make to air and water pollution, deforestation, and global warming, how do abortion advocates — warning about overpopulation consuming the world’s resources — justify consuming animal products?
Mary Shelley
Vegetarianism is not about following sectarian diet laws
Christians sometimes regard vegetarianism as a sectarian dietary restriction, like “keeping kosher,” rather than seeing it as a universal ethic for all mankind, such as abstaining from cannibalism.
But Leonardo Da Vinci, Count Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas Gandhi, George Bernard Shaw, Susan B. Anthony, Percy and Mary Shelley, Rosa Parks and many others were vegetarian, and none of them were Jewish, Muslim, or otherwise obliged to follow sectarian diets.
Percy Shelley
If vegetarianism were merely about “fit,” or following a peculiar set of “dietary laws,” why would some pro-lifers be offended by pro-choice vegetarians and pro-choice vegans?
Clearly, they are offended because they know vegetarianism involves the animals’ right to life, and thus these pro-choicers appear to value animal life over human life under some circumstances. And issues such as animal experimentation, circuses, and fur have nothing to do with food, but do involve animals’ right to life.
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“If I want to be authentically and consistently pro-life, I should give up eating meat”
For Love of Animals: Christian Ethics, Consistent Action offers an introduction to animal rights ethics within Christianity, alongside directly related sanctity-of-life issues, such as the possible rights of unborn children. The book’s foreword is written by Mary Eberstadt, a senior fellow with the Ethics & Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
Eberstadt, a Catholic, identifies herself as “Pro-Animal, Pro-Life.”
Author Charles Camosy responds to criticisms from Animal Liberation author Peter Singer and the late Princeton medievalist Lynn White, Jr. (1907-1987) that misinterpretation of “human dominion” (versus compassionate stewardship) is responsible for the current ecological crisis.
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Camosy indicates that Christianity cannot be blamed if humans with their imperfections distort their own religious teachings, that Christianity did not give rise to the industrial revolution, and that real Christianity — as it was meant to be practiced — is at odds with market-driven ethics and mass consumerism (a point made decades ago by liberal Protestant theologian Dr. Harvey Cox).
Camosy concludes: “I became convinced that, if I wanted to be authentically and consistently pro-life, I should give up eating meat.” Dozens of books have been written on Christianity and animal rights. Camosy merely provides an overview of animal ethics in Christianity.
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“A commitment to helping the vulnerable”
Steve Kaufman, head of the Christian Vegetarian Association, was raised Jewish, and is now serving in the United Church of Christ, America’s largest pro-choice Protestant denomination. Steve expressed interest in Democrats For Life, his only reservation being whether Democrats For Life favors criminalizing abortion. Some animal advocates and activists (like Catholic vegan columnist Colman McCarthy) oppose abortion, but don’t think criminalization is the answer.
In 2004, on the Democrats For Life email list, artist Maria Krasinski mentioned a poll which found animal activists evenly divided on abortion. This either indicates animal rights really are a bipartisan cause, which conservatives can support alongside liberals, or it indicates many liberals are uncomfortable with abortion.
Kristen Day of Democrats For Life in 2014 observed that, “Roughly a third of the Democratic Party is pro-life. And while many do not call themselves liberal, they share the values which seem to identify with liberalism, particularly a commitment to helping the vulnerable and providing a social safety net.”
Vasu Murti
[Vasu Murti, author of A Source of Inspiration: Krishna Consciousness and the Judeo-Christian Tradition and They Shall Not Hurt or Destroy: Animal Rights and Vegetarianism
in the Western Religious Traditions, describes himself as “a writer and activist, born and raised in Southern California in a family of South Indian Brahmins,” who holds degrees in physics and applied mathematics from the University of California, and “is a regular contributor to Harmony: Voices for a Just Future, a ‘consistent ethic’ publication on the religious left.”]
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Good is not good enough! by Ed Duvin
Preventing our companion animals from giving birth is prolife insofar as many more dogs and cats face death – typically a terrible death – when allowed to reproduce babies no one (no human being) wants. Perhaps it minces words to say there’s a difference between supporting abortion and supporting the right, and often the need, for an abortion. This includes actively limiting populations of free-living animals who will be shot, poisoned, slaughtered, and otherwise killed by those who don’t want them or who enjoy killing them for sport.
Women in poor rural American communities and inner-cities – white women as well as women of color – are living miserable lives in many instances, with no father to help support the children these men carelessly father, leaving teenaged girls and other mothers to bear the entire burden of child-care. Many women cannot afford birth control, and many are victims of domestic violence toward themselves, their children, and their pets unleashed by the men in their lives. Many so-called pro-lifers completely oppose government support for poor women burdened with children and living in communities where jobs are virtually nonexistent. These pro-lifers are not really pro-life; they are strictly pro-birth, and often in the most cynical sense of the word.
Our chicken sanctuary policy is No Reproduction. We cannot populate our sanctuary with animals born here, thereby preventing birds who need a home to be adopted given our limited resources and our rescue/adoption mission. Since we have both roosters and hens in our sanctuary, eggs laid here are frequently fertile and would, if we did not collect them, result in chicks. Given this problem, much as I hate depriving hens who want to be mothers, I am fine with feeding the eggs our hens lay back to our birds. Thus, they get the benefit of their own reproductive activity not in the form of chicks but in the form of food.
Yes, I’m imposing on our birds, and supporting generally, an imposition of abortion as a matter of situational ethics and practicality. At the same time, I support the right of pregnant women to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy, and also their right, and need, for affordable, even free, birth control. I do not support bringing unwanted children into the world by coercion or pregnancy passivity. To me, this is a form of child abuse. If neither the father nor the mother truly wants the child, cannot or will not bear the financial, nurturing, and educational responsibility for the child, a child should not be forced by law or by any other means, to have to exist.
Given the overpopulation of unwanted humans and nonhuman animals on the planet, the most moral thing a truly prolife person can do is to adopt an animal or a child who desperately needs a loving and responsible parent or caregiver or at least contribute to adoption and other helping programs including universal birth control. As a society, we should financially and justly support assistance for those who are trying to cope with the cruelty inflicted on them by their circumstances – circumstances that are mostly caused by selfish social attitudes and heartless government policies.
Karen Davis, PhD, President, United Poultry Concerns. http://www.upc-online.org
I’m in complete agreement, and for the same reasons, as Karen Davis posting before me. As to ideology, I am deeply spiritual though not in complete agreement with all of the tenets of my faith; and I have advocated for spay/neuter/TNR and our rights to make our own personal decisions regarding our health care and family planning, as well as for Zero Population Growth, as overpopulation is at the root of most, if not all, of the world’s current crises and certainly adversely affects animals as well as all of the unwanted, abused, starving, and otherwise underprivileged children.
To me, being “pro-life” would mean doing everything possible to ensure that every child born would have a loving home, food, clothes, and shelter, the best education possible, and good care in general. There is something profoundly hypocritical, in my view, in those who use this term to mean outlawing and criminalizing abortion while turning a very blind eye on the millions of children globally and nationally who suffer from human neglect and abuse. Conversely, the current fight to subsidize yet more children being born in this society gives tacit approval to adding to the overpopulation crisis and making those of us who have made the informed decision not to have children pay for it.
It is only fair to observe that many, though certainly not all, of the religious organizations opposed to abortion-on-demand are also deeply involved in anti-poverty work, providing child care and child health care, operating orphanages, operating adoption programs, and––especially those representing people of color––promoting human rights and social justice.
To judge the pro-life cause only by the people who terrorize doctors, scream at women outside abortion clinics, and try to defund Planned Parenthood is like judging the animal rights movement only by the activities of the most militant, violent, and irrational few who would probably be venting sociopathy through some other cause if not the animal cause.
Definitely an important and thought provoking article. This also applies to the comment by Ms. Davis.
I think Gloria Steinem got it right: “If MEN got pregnant, abortion would be considered a sacrament.”
But that would put it in the same category as animal sacrifice.
The truly Great Hypocrites in this debate are those who loudly denounce the destruction of a human embryo while turning a blind eye to all the horrible things that are routinely done to billions of post natal non-human animals, oftentimes for the most trivial imaginable of reasons. The only way anyone can logically equate a fully functional conscious animal as being of lesser significance than a tablespoon of protoplasmic goo is by investing the latter with religio-mystic properties. And now we are inescapably in the realm of religious fanaticism. Good luck trying to have a rational conversation with that!
That’s how I’d have answered, too! I agree with this comment I saw and saved: “Christian beliefs are probably responsible for more animal suffering than all other sources put together in all of earth’s past. When they speak of life, they need to add the qualifier “human” because they sure as h*II aren’t talking about ALL life.”
If shown a pig embryo and a human embryo well into a month, would you “pro-life” folks know which one to take into account? Do unborn baby animals suffer while their pregnant mothers are being slaughtered in a slaughterhouse?
This is why I don’t believe in “the sanctity of HUMAN life” alone because the meaning of its implied corollary is the de-sanctification, desecration, devaluation of ALL OTHER-THAN-HUMAN LIFE. And here’s something from the Catholic catechism: It is contrary to human dignity [not the animal victims’ dignity] to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly. It is likewise UNWORTHY to spend money on them that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery. One can love animals; one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons.
To the Catholic Church, animals are not persons, but “things.” Owed no charity.