THIS I KNOW

Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, November, 2005

I have heard every excuse in the book from people who eat animals, and I have yet to hear a good reason. I don't think people really give much thought to the excuses they come up with, or rather, they've never been challenged. I've moved in circles where the favorite is "eating meat is a personal preference, and though I respect your desire not to eat them, I'm sure you'll respect my preference to dine on them."

The problem with this justification is that it assumes there is no victim involved. A choice made from "personal preference" might be the color I paint my bathroom, the kind of car I buy, or the way I style my hair. But justifying eating animals "because it's my personal preference" and should be respected just isn't the same thing. This excuse implies that "my desire, my tradition, my family, my culture," or "my taste preference" comes first and is superior to anything—or anyone - else. But since when do traditions, culture, habits, or preferences absolve us when we have consciously harmed another?

As a society, we decide certain behaviors, certain actions, certain "personal preferences" are inappropriate or morally reprehensible, especially if they cause harm to another who is not a willing participant. Parents who abuse their own children often protest when confronted that it is nobody else's business, that people shouldn't meddle into their affairs, and that they can do what they like in their own home. Though once - when children were the lawful property of their parents - they were legally protected, it's not so anymore. We now say it's wrong, and we intervene when it occurs (all too often). The same analogy works for men who abuse their wives. We once agreed it was acceptable. Even our language today carries remnants of the days when women were the property of their husbands. "Mrs." is the abbreviated possessive form of "Mister/Mr."—hence—"Mister's/Mrs."

As conscious consumers, we make choices everyday about the products we buy - we choose those that don't contribute to child labor, those that use the least amount of the earth's resources, those that didn't travel thousands of
miles to get to our front door, those that come from companies whose labor practices we support. How, then, can we possibly ignore the animals whose miserable lives have been cut short because we hold onto a particular taste preference or habit? The animals whose bodies have been tormented, torn up, and cut up for our enjoyment are no different than the victims of domestic abuse who, if they had a choice—if they had a voice - would choose not to be abused and killed.

When we take away the choice of another and then use that as license to hurt or kill, we are participating in an egregious act of cruelty—whether we do it ourselves or pay others to do it for us. We only tell ourselves that our personal choice is our own business—our own preference - so we can sleep soundly at night. A personal choice to be cruel? Deconstructed, it comes out looking a little like the credo below:

I CHOOSE TO BE CRUEL, THEREFORE I AM
Not exactly a personal credo to live by. Yet, because millions of people do live by it, billions of animals die by it—year in and year out.