The experience I recently had with this list troubled me greatly, also. While people
may disagree on whether animals are people or whether fetuses are people, no one can
reasonably disagree with the statement that born humans are people, thus when
decisions concerning abortion or meat consumption are to be made, they must be made by
the individual born humans concerned, and no other born human has the right to dictate
that decision to or for them. Unfortunately, the sexual puritanicalism of the
religious right discovers its isomorphism in the gastric puritanicalism of some (not
all) vegetarians. While no one here would think of forcing people to have abortions
or to eat meat against their wills, there are factions that find the opposite course,
the effort to either prohibit others from obtaining abortions or prohibit others from
meat consumption, not only acceptable, but personally ethically mandatated. In either
case, this attitude is typically reflected in their attitude!
!
s towards those who disagree with them on the control of their own lives, waving
fetuses or carcasses at them with flat-eyed fervency, and impervious to the pleas of
the rest of us to have our rights to make our own choices in these matters respected.
They consider these people, either meat-consumers or pro-choicers, as moral
degenerates unworthy of respect, and treat them with undisguised bigotry and contempt.
These people will always be able to manufacture an excuse or rationalize a reason why
they should be in control, not only of their own affairs, but of the affairs of the
rest of humankind. However, whatever the content of their stance, its structure is
patriarchal, and reflective of a dominator rather than a partnership model.
I plead with the militant and extreme veggies on this list to return the tolerance
granted them by meat eaters as a matter of course, and to refrain from ugly and
oppressive displays in the future, opting instead for the acceptance of each human's
sovereign right, be it dietary or reproductive, to make these decisions for
themselves, in accordance with their own consciences, and to accept the right of
people of good faith to disagree without sacrificing mutual respect, as well as the
responsibility to not allow the fact that people can and do (and have the right to)
disagree with you in these matters to function as a justification for treating those
who do with disrepect, cruelty or contempt.
Joe E. Dees
Poet, Pagan, Philosopher
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