Your Positions

• We should all be vegetarian. Animals should never be killed or mistreated, but it is OK to use them for milk and eggs, because it can done without harming them. (Start over)

Things to Consider

You can have sex with people without harming them, but this requires consent. Just because sexual activity can sometimes be done in an ethically alright way doesn’t in any way justify sexual activity without consent.

The situation with milk and eggs is much more on the extreme side of things in terms of the ratio of non-consensual to consensual activities. Let’s go into more detail here.

Cows

The vast majority of milk is produced on large farms which employ artificial insemination. In order to do this, bulls often have a vibrator or electric stimulator shoved up their ass to stimulate their prostate gland to cause them to ejaculate semen. Dairy cows are then restrained to prevent them from struggling free, and are then forcibly penetrated by a farmer or technician to inser this semen inserted into their vagina. There is no indication the cow enjoys this process. This is required, however, as like most mammals, dairy cows do not produce milk unless constantly impregnated to produce offspring and trigger the requisite hormonal changes to produce milk. This requirement is a biological requirement, and holds both of large and small farms.

Male calfs born are essentially useless to the dairy industry, and are either sold immediately for slaughter (often not even having an hour with their mother), or else are given a days worth of colostrum (the first milk produced which has special antibodies) and tied up in a small shed in order to raise them for veal. The female calfs are either sold, slaughtered if they are unneeded, or else raised until the age of 13 months at which point they are impregnated for the firs time (this is four years old in cow years). Dairy cows are typically slaughtered after around six years (or twenty-four years old in cow years) when their milk production starts to drop, because it is more cost effective to raise a new cow and sell their meat.

You have most likely never drunk milk that comes from a cow that was allowed to live out anywhere close to its natural lifespan. You have most likely never drunk milk from a farm that doesn’t slaughter its male calfs or sell them for slaughter. Not once in your entire life are you likely to have drunk such “ethical milk”. There is a misconception that this is a “small farm versus big factory farm” issue, or a “pasture raised versus grain fed” issue, or an “organic versus conventional” issue, or a “welfare certified versus non-certified” issue. It’s not. When you buy milk at the grocery store, or even from a local farmers’ market, you are paying for death.

That doesn’t sound very vegetarian.

Chickens

98% of eggs produced come from factory farms. Most eggs labeled “free-range organic” come from factory farms. These terms are misleading at best and dangerous at worst, because they lead consumers to believe that the chickens laying those eggs are running freely around a green pasture, happy nesting in a quaint wooden chicken coop on soft beds of hay. This imagery is not at all representative of “free range”. The definition of free range allows for thousands of hens to be kept in tightly-packed and dimly lit warehouses walking in their own shit, with only a tiny caged outdoor area. Current definitions even allow hens to be kept in wire enclosures, as long as they are not isolated to individual cages and free with move around within that enclosure. The term “free range” was created by industry groups to evoke imagery of serene landscapes and red-painted barns, which don’t represent at all the concrete and steel reality these chickens actually face.

It is standard practice on both large and small egg farms and hatcheries to kill all newborn male chicks. These male chicks have not been genetically selected to grow large as fast as broiler chickens, so they are basically useless to the meat industry. On large farms, they are typically thrown live and fully conscious by the thousands into an industrial macerator and ground up into a paste which can be used for animal feed or other purposes. On small farms, smaller scale execution methods are used, including gas chambers. Egg-laying hens are typically slaughtered at 18 months (or around fifteen years old in chicken years) when their egg production drops and sold for lower quality cuts of chicken.

You have most likely never in your entire life eaten eggs that come from a farm that does not cull their newborn male chicks or slaughter their egg-laying hens early in their natural life. Even if you know someone with “backyard hens”, they most likely bought those chicks from a breeder that culls their male chicks. When you buy eggs from a grocery store, or even from a local farmers’ market, you are paying for death.

That also doesn’t sound very vegetarian.

Which of the following best positions best represents your views?

1. My religion only forbids me from eating meat, so there is no obligation for me to abstain from eggs or dairy.

2. My uncle (or actually my friends’ cousins uncle who my friend met one time) has a farm and he doesn’t kill the chickens and they are free to roam around in the lush countryside.

3. Look, it’s already hard enough already not to eat meat, you are basically demanding perfection if we have to cut out every little thing. Plus, the vast majority of people still eat meat, so we should be focusing on that before worrying about relatively minor things like dairy or eggs.

4. I only shop at Whole Foods / farmers’ markets, and always buy the most expensive stuff, so none of what you said about factory farming applies to the eggs and dairy I buy.