People Who Say They Don't Care About Animals

by Nia
(NY, NY)

Question:

How do you respond when people tell you that they just don't care about animals? I can never believe that people think that and I never know what to say.


Answer:

I know just where you are coming from Nia. When people tell me that I can barely conceal my cringing. I normally try to bite my lip so as not to be openly outraged.

Ultimately, people who say, "It's just a cow. Why do I care about a cow?" don't know what is really happening to that cow, both in life and in the process of being killed. If, for instance, that same person were to actually witness the slaughter of a cow first-hand, I think they would hesitate to say they don't care about the cow. After all, it's not so much the animal as the suffering.

Paul McCartney said, "If slaughterhouses had glass windows, we'd all be vegetarians."

He's completely right, and that's one of the reasons that we are never allowed to see the killing process. I do know of a few smaller farms that allow viewers, and they make the process much more humane. But, on the vast, vast majority of farms, the suffering any of us would see would surely be unstomachable.

However, if there is somehow a way that a human could be so numb as not to be affected by the facts of the lives and deaths of farm animals, the best way to approach that discussion (if you are planning to have one), is to look at it entirely from that person's point of view... How does eating animals affect them?

After all, that's what they are saying they care about... themselves, and possibly the lives of other humans. They might be interested in the environmental affects of animal farming, but often I find these same people are not really interested in the global affects of their diets either.

So, I approach it from the health angle. There are numerous studies about the benefits of a vegan diet and the drawbacks of a diet heavy in animal products. You can read up on the studies that show how animal-heavy diets are dangerous for your health and on how plant-based diets can lead to longer, healthier lives.

I hope that helps! Don't let anyone else's lack of compassion dampen your spirit, and try to remember back before you knew about veganism to see things from other viewpoints.