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What's the deal with pro-choice vegans?

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AspE
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12 Nov 2018, 3:29 pm

The Grand Inquisitor wrote:
So it's fine to abort a forming human life because you may not have been conducting yourself responsibly and then BAM conception. But killing animals for food is absolutely immoral. It's like they value human life less than animal life and that's just something I cannot understand.

I've noticed a couple of people like this who are quite vocal about not killing and eating animals, but will cheer for and champion the legalization/decriminalization of abortion. I understand that an animal is a fully formed being whilst a fetus is not, but I still can't help but feel that this is a clear example of self-serving cognitive dissonance.

I myself am pro-choice (but not as a substitute for protection) and an omnivore, but I would have to think that if I valued life that much that I took a stand against animal agriculture and the meat industry, that that concern for life would extend beyond animals to unborn humans too. Maybe I'm missing something but honestly I just find the two concepts of strong value for animal life and the lack of value for the lives of unborn infants to be irreconcilable.

I guess they feel It's just as wrong for a fetus to demand your life as for a human to demand an animal's life.



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12 Nov 2018, 4:04 pm

You can almost define a vegan as being someone who lacks the capacity to see so subtle a point as the one you've mentioned. I don't get it either - or anything else about the hoi polloi; their seemingly willful irrationality baffles me. Mr Mikah, likewise, is right bin thinking that it's fad rather than a philosophical or moral position to take.



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12 Nov 2018, 4:15 pm

Veginazis don't care about people, only animals.



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12 Nov 2018, 9:40 pm

I understand that you are not refering to specifically individuals like me, a pro-choice person who is vegan primarily because of the environmental impact of the animal industry, but I will explain my pov:

-Unlike an animal, a zygote doesn't have the ability to feel pain or any sentience
-For the most part, people don't need to eat animal products at all and so they are only killing animals for their own enjoyment (I understand that some people, such as extreme anemics, might need to eat red meat for iron)
-Unlike animal product consumption, people overwhelmingly get abortions because they need to, not because they simply feel like it (finances, age, rape, health, etc: there are many factors and reasons why a person might chose to get an abortion)
-Animal agriculture is massively awful for the environment and we have an overpopulation problem. I'm not "pro-abortions", but I find it illogical to bring more children into the world when the mother doesn't want the child/can't take care of it


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The_Walrus
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13 Nov 2018, 2:30 pm

The Grand Inquisitor wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
I am not a vegan, but I am a vegetarian, and staunchly pro-choice, and a mild animal rights activist.

I don't care about an animal's species. I care about its ability to suffer, and be aware of that suffering. I think there is good evidence that chickens have significantly more capacity to suffer than zygotes, embryos, or foetuses. Cows and sheep, more so. And pigs? Those are intelligent animals.

I'd like us as a species to move away from slaughtering large mammals, particularly pigs, and towards chickens and insects.

As for "where do you draw the line" - I think birth is a convenient place. It's early enough to ensure that there are no "people" before it, and it also gets around questions like bodily autonomy and social acceptability. It's not perfect but it will do.

I think that is a ridiculous place to draw the line. It's basically a fully-formed baby just seconds before birth. And as for bodily autonomy, so long as there was no kind of sexual assault or coercion involved in the sex act, you were exercising your own free will and bodily autonomy to put yourself in the position that made you pregnant in the first place. If you dont want to end up pregnant, there are plenty of ways to prevent it before the fact. Abstinence, pills and condoms just to name a few. I also dont think there's any sound reason to leave getting an abortion up right to when the baby is born, unless its birth poses a risk to your own life or something of the like.

Abortion is not interchangeable with birth control.

Pregnancy isn't a punishment for having sex, and even if you do decide to have sex with the intention of conceiving, humans are allowed to change their minds later. It's no different to deciding that you no longer want your pet cockroach.

Condoms and birth control pills are both unreliable.

I think it's childish to think that people use late-stage abortion as a form of birth control. People have abortions out of necessity and desperation. They are unpleasant procedures and nobody would have one if they could help it. But sometimes they're necessary.

Mikah wrote:
Walrus has odd views on this. As I recall, he said killing a newborn is roughly equivalent in his worldview to killing a pig, while also believing that human life begins at conception. Also, he wouldn't kill pigs to eat them as a moral vegetarian, but is staunchly pro-abortion. A position so out there, it's difficult to know where to start. We didn't get a chance to delve deeper.

That's a fair representation of my views. I should add that I also wouldn't kill a baby to eat them...



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13 Nov 2018, 2:35 pm

The_Walrus wrote:
The Grand Inquisitor wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
I am not a vegan, but I am a vegetarian, and staunchly pro-choice, and a mild animal rights activist.

I don't care about an animal's species. I care about its ability to suffer, and be aware of that suffering. I think there is good evidence that chickens have significantly more capacity to suffer than zygotes, embryos, or foetuses. Cows and sheep, more so. And pigs? Those are intelligent animals.

I'd like us as a species to move away from slaughtering large mammals, particularly pigs, and towards chickens and insects.

As for "where do you draw the line" - I think birth is a convenient place. It's early enough to ensure that there are no "people" before it, and it also gets around questions like bodily autonomy and social acceptability. It's not perfect but it will do.

I think that is a ridiculous place to draw the line. It's basically a fully-formed baby just seconds before birth. And as for bodily autonomy, so long as there was no kind of sexual assault or coercion involved in the sex act, you were exercising your own free will and bodily autonomy to put yourself in the position that made you pregnant in the first place. If you dont want to end up pregnant, there are plenty of ways to prevent it before the fact. Abstinence, pills and condoms just to name a few. I also dont think there's any sound reason to leave getting an abortion up right to when the baby is born, unless its birth poses a risk to your own life or something of the like.

Abortion is not interchangeable with birth control.

Pregnancy isn't a punishment for having sex, and even if you do decide to have sex with the intention of conceiving, humans are allowed to change their minds later. It's no different to deciding that you no longer want your pet cockroach.

Condoms and birth control pills are both unreliable.

I think it's childish to think that people use late-stage abortion as a form of birth control. People have abortions out of necessity and desperation. They are unpleasant procedures and nobody would have one if they could help it. But sometimes they're necessary.

Mikah wrote:
Walrus has odd views on this. As I recall, he said killing a newborn is roughly equivalent in his worldview to killing a pig, while also believing that human life begins at conception. Also, he wouldn't kill pigs to eat them as a moral vegetarian, but is staunchly pro-abortion. A position so out there, it's difficult to know where to start. We didn't get a chance to delve deeper.

That's a fair representation of my views. I should add that I also wouldn't kill a baby to eat them...


WTF you would kill your own pet?


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14 Nov 2018, 2:09 pm

No, I just don't think it should be illegal to kill insects or embryos that you own.



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14 Nov 2018, 3:00 pm

drwho222 wrote:
Veginazis don't care about people, only animals.

Insult aside, I've found that to be true. My one vegan and autistic friend said he might make an exception for human meat, because people suck. They are ruining the planet in a way that other animals never did. One less person is one less meat eater who would likely consume many animals in their lifetime.



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14 Nov 2018, 3:58 pm

The_Walrus wrote:
No, I just don't think it should be illegal to kill insects or embryos that you own.


I think the idea that people should be able to kill what they have a responsibility for to be bull crap.
Child, insect, dog or any other living creature.


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16 Nov 2018, 1:13 pm

Arganger wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
No, I just don't think it should be illegal to kill insects or embryos that you own.


I think the idea that people should be able to kill what they have a responsibility for to be bull crap.
Child, insect, dog or any other living creature.

That looks like a misrepresentation of my position. I don't think people should be able to kill things because they have a responsibility for them. I just think that the only reason why it should ever be a criminal offence to kill a non-sapient lifeform such as a foetus, a tree, or an insect is because it belongs to someone else. "Destruction of property" rather than "murder".