You know, the animal rights movement really took off in response to factory farming, which all the interested parties tried to keep a secret for several decades. Now the secret is out--all the animal rights organizations have pamphlets with really sad photos of suffering, dead and dying animals, and the word is starting to get out a little. Animal sanctuaries are becoming more prevalent, also, and many people, including groups of children, come to visit and go away feeling much stronger bonds with animals, and decide not to eat them. It is really sad that no major channels will even sell PETA ad time. That seems so unfair. Most Americans would not eat meat if they knew how the animals suffer.
I think the key at least is to let animals lead full animal lives. That is the way it was on family farms historically. They weren't locked in tiny crates, pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, etc. Did you know that a lot of them have broken legs or go lame because their bodies cannot even support the amount of meat that the hormones create? This is way beyond gross and unsettling . . .
Now with all the new information coming out about how smart animals are, and how advanced their problem-solving abilities are, and incredible studies like the one that shows that chickens in pain choose the morphine-laced pellets, it is hard to argue that we really have a right to eat them. The International Vegan Society has set a goal of 2050 for most people on earth to be vegan. It seems like it will be very difficult to achieve that, but when you have bodies like the European Union staunchly determined to treat animals like sentient beings and give them the toys, space, and humane treatment necessary for them to have nice animal lives, it makes less and less sense to end up eating them at the end of that, and I think that people's views will evolve in that direction.
At least I hope so! On top of all the recent studies that show just how bad meat- and dairy-based diets are for people's health, the tipping point may come sooner than expected. |
