Compassion for Animals

Even animals who are not raised for meat suffer greatly. For example, in order to produce milk, a dairy cow must give birth to a calf each year. She carries a single calf for 9 months. After birth, her calf is cruelly removed from her almost immediately so that her milk can be taken for human consumption. The separation causes extreme distress to both mother and calf. Each male calf is placed alone in a small crate until he is slaughtered at about 4 months old, for veal. A female calf is more likely to be raised to suffer the same fate as her mother: she will be kept pregnant on an almost constant basis, repeating the process of giving birth and having her calf taken away several times until her milk production slows, at which point she too is slaughtered. This process is inherently miserable.

The egg industry is similarly cruel, treating hens as nothing more than egg machines. An egg-laying hen is slaughtered at a small fraction of her natural lifespan when her egg production slows. And for every hen raised to lay eggs, there is on average one male chick who was killed shortly after hatching, since raising roosters is not profitable. This means that millions of male chicks are killed each year, typically by being thrown alive into grinders.

All of this is totally unnecessary, as we can live happy and healthy lives on a plant-based (vegan) diet.