Daily Grist reports that the current epidemic/prospective pandemic of swine flu could be the direct result of industrial meat production. The US company Smithfield runs giant hog farms in Mexico, including some in the area where the infections in humans apparently began.
This isn't surprising. The pigs are crammed together in such a way that rampant diseases are pretty much inevitable. Same way that the global trafficking in poultry animals is implicated in outbreaks of avian flu.
One more reason, of many, to go veg: to refuse complicity in creating misery and death for so many sentient beings, human and other-than-human.
If you are thinking about going veg and aren't sure where and how to get started, please visit the Vegetarian Resource Group and GoVeg.com.
Welcome & Thank You...
...for visiting the Blog of the Nonviolent Choice Directory.
These measures include post abortion healing; male responsibility; comprehensive sexual/reproductive health education; all voluntary pregnancy prevention methods, plus rape and incest prevention & treatment; and life-affirming ways to get through crisis pregnancy and beyond.
Along with responding to our current action alerts, and participating in our Blog, you are welcome to volunteer with us.
We feature commentary but most of all action alerts on the same positive, abortion-reducing measures we cover in the Directory.
These measures include post abortion healing; male responsibility; comprehensive sexual/reproductive health education; all voluntary pregnancy prevention methods, plus rape and incest prevention & treatment; and life-affirming ways to get through crisis pregnancy and beyond.
Along with responding to our current action alerts, and participating in our Blog, you are welcome to volunteer with us.
Showing posts with label Animals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Animals. Show all posts
Monday, April 27, 2009
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
More Resources on Other Ways to Give Life
Our Directory section on Other Ways to Give Life affirms the capacity of every human being to practice generativity, or a mature, compassionate giving to others and to the future, regardless of whether s/he is a parent or not. We have just expanded and (hopefully) improved it, though it is difficult for us as ersons who happen to be parents to assess whether we are adequately sensitive here to childless/childfree persons. If we are not, please tell us how and make specific recommendations so that we can improve.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Prolife, But Not for Dogs?
A story on the current uproar over illegal dogfighting discusses an effort in the US Congress to pass a federal ban on the practice. It includes a revelation of the "please, don't be such a self-defeating stereotype" variety. To wit:
Most of the bill's opponents say they aren't fans of dogfighting but are conservative, pro-life Republicans. Iowa Rep. Steve King from Iowa says it's wrong for the federal government to criminalize pit bull trafficking while allowing legal abortion.
"My vote says that human life needs to be elevated and stay above animal life. And I think it devalues all human life, when you set the life of an animal up above that of a human," King says.
Even if one sets aside the thorny question, too large for a single blog post, on the respective values of human and animal lives...(And by the way, I'm a vegetarian who's adopted three animals from shelters, who writes politicians all the time about animal & environmental concerns, *in concert* with actively opposing abortion....)
Is this not the sort of "either-or," "us-vs.-them," zero-sum approach that turns public deliberation over abortion into the woman-v.-fetus war that derails all efforts to relieve abortion's root causes?
Surely there is a better way to counter abortion than condemning dogs--living, sentient beings, just like any human--to abuse and violent deaths.
This kind of "either-or" thinking obscures a very important reality that need to be addressed in stopping many forms of violence against human beings. Namely, as organizations like American Humane stress, acts of violence towards animals and towards human beings are profoundly interconnected.
Instead of saying "let's not protect dogs, because our government doesn't protect unborn babies," legislators like King could instead say, "let's protect dogs, and maybe that will as well as protecting the dogs, encourage the public to look again at what is done to very small humans."
Most of the bill's opponents say they aren't fans of dogfighting but are conservative, pro-life Republicans. Iowa Rep. Steve King from Iowa says it's wrong for the federal government to criminalize pit bull trafficking while allowing legal abortion.
"My vote says that human life needs to be elevated and stay above animal life. And I think it devalues all human life, when you set the life of an animal up above that of a human," King says.
Even if one sets aside the thorny question, too large for a single blog post, on the respective values of human and animal lives...(And by the way, I'm a vegetarian who's adopted three animals from shelters, who writes politicians all the time about animal & environmental concerns, *in concert* with actively opposing abortion....)
Is this not the sort of "either-or," "us-vs.-them," zero-sum approach that turns public deliberation over abortion into the woman-v.-fetus war that derails all efforts to relieve abortion's root causes?
Surely there is a better way to counter abortion than condemning dogs--living, sentient beings, just like any human--to abuse and violent deaths.
This kind of "either-or" thinking obscures a very important reality that need to be addressed in stopping many forms of violence against human beings. Namely, as organizations like American Humane stress, acts of violence towards animals and towards human beings are profoundly interconnected.
Instead of saying "let's not protect dogs, because our government doesn't protect unborn babies," legislators like King could instead say, "let's protect dogs, and maybe that will as well as protecting the dogs, encourage the public to look again at what is done to very small humans."
Friday, June 22, 2007
How to Save 13 Million Lives A Year (Part Two)
In response to the World Health Organization report, I have expanded and improved the Eco-Friendly Living section(direct URL http://www.nonviolentchoice.info/ecolife.html) of the Nonviolent Choice Directory. Here you can find dozens of ways that you can foster life-saving environmental changes at every level from the individual and household to the widescale-institutional and global.
It took me a little longer than expected to do this because while rechecking one of the websites--an online listing of animals available for adoption from shelters--I began to think again about whether it was time to add to our household's small flock of guinea pigs. And I found--and adopted!-- a very sweet-natured little fellow. He will be ready to join the two girls (also adopted from a no-kill shelter) once his quarantine is over and he has properly recovered from his neutering surgery. He already contributes copiously to the local good cheer and to the compost bin, just like his pals.
It took me a little longer than expected to do this because while rechecking one of the websites--an online listing of animals available for adoption from shelters--I began to think again about whether it was time to add to our household's small flock of guinea pigs. And I found--and adopted!-- a very sweet-natured little fellow. He will be ready to join the two girls (also adopted from a no-kill shelter) once his quarantine is over and he has properly recovered from his neutering surgery. He already contributes copiously to the local good cheer and to the compost bin, just like his pals.
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