UPC President Karen Davis’ Letter appeared in yesterday’s print edition of Mountain Xpress in Asheville, North Carolina.
The Letter is scheduled to appear online on the
Mountain Xpress website this afternoon.
Mountain Xpress welcomes thoughtful online comments in response to its published Letters to the Editor.
We Don’t Need to Slaughter a Sheep to Learn “Where Our Food Comes From”
By Karen Davis
Wild Abundance, a homesteading business near Asheville, plans to teach a “humane” do-it-yourself slaughter workshop that will include the
killing of a live sheep. The instructors and self-styled “ethical butchers” leading this class promote the idea that what’s needed to
bridge the gap between urbanized meat eaters and the animals behind the meat is to slaughter their own animals. Look your chicken or your goat in the eye
and “honor” the animal as you slice “its” throat and watch “it” suffocate to death in “its” own blood.
Bear in mind that serial murderers “bond” with their victims – they know their victim’s pain and experience it vicariously as
pleasure. Bonding and “connecting” do not necessarily entail compassion, and violating another’s body does not lead to sympathy with the
victim. Indeed, hurting others is a thrill for many people who lust for more of the delicious sensation. We know this is true when it comes to humans
intentionally hurting other humans, but when it comes to humans intentionally hurting animals, the rhetoric disconnects from reality as easily as the face
disconnects from a small helpless body under the smack of a hatchet.
One of the instructors of this upcoming class, and the person who will kill the sheep being brought in for this “honor,” is local butcher
Meredith Leigh, who states that “ego is largely to blame about why we get so upset about eating animals. We assume we are important . . . our ego
just gets in the way."
Yet her position is infected with ego, based as it is on the entitled idea that “might makes right,” and that dietary preference is more
important than an animal’s life.
When you choose to kill an animal for culinary pleasure, you are saying that for you this animal is Nothing. You are Everything. And since animals have no
protection against us, we can say and do whatever we please about our reasons for destroying them.
Beyond the injustice of killing animals needlessly, farmed animals are inefficient converters of food and require far more crops, land, water, and energy
than sustainable plant-based agriculture. If Wild Abundance truly aspires to be a model of sustainable and ethical living, they should focus instead on
regenerative plant-based food production.
Thank you for your attention.
Sincerely,
Karen Davis, President
United Poultry Concerns
Karen Davis is President of United Poultry Concerns, a nonprofit organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl.
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A turkey and a lamb comfort each other. Photo courtesy of The Gentle Barn
