A New Normal: The Anti-Speciesism Imperative in the Post COVID-19 World

By Hope Bohanec

Published in Animal Agriculture is Immoral: An Anthology, 2020.

“Our disrespect for wild animals and our disrespect for farmed animals has created this situation where disease can spill over to infect human beings.” --Jane Goodall

As we reel in chaos from a global pandemic, something potentially positive is emerging from the crisis. As a society, many of us have accepted the burden of social distancing and mask wearing at personal, social, and even economic expense, ultimately making our practice of “sheltering in place” a collective expression of compassion and care. Most of us have agreed to this inconvenient adversity to help keep others safe—especially the elderly and those with compromised health. We have collectively subscribed to social distancing for reasons beyond self-interest. In this piece I will explore this development that surpasses our conventional empathy and offer the hope that if magnified, this communal compassion and care could be what saves us from the next pandemic and washes our hands of animal suffering and climate disruption.

Our exploitation of non-human animals and the environment has everything to do with the origin of COVID-19 and it will likely cause even more deadly future pandemics if we don’t make changes. We need to adopt preventative measures based on the understanding that social distancing after the outbreak is not enough and direct our collective attention to another major social and cultural conversion—disrupting the systematic exploitation of non-human animals. If we can tap into the global compassion that we are experiencing for other humans in the era of COVID-19 to a commensurate care and concern for all animals, the earth, and the climate crisis, we might flatten the curve of suffering and slow the destruction on the planet. Perhaps the first step is recognizing that we are globally steeped in the worldview of speciesism.

Systems of structural violence such as speciesism, racism, sexism, and homophobia are characterized by the false belief that one group is entitled to be dominant over, or more important than, another. Speciesism is a collection of attitudes, ideas, beliefs, and even other subconscious cultural and psychological patterns that wrongly legitimize humans inflicting domination over all other beings in the animal kingdom. The assumption of human superiority allows for the horrific exploitation of animals in a variety of forms worldwide. A recent example of speciesism that has attracted public attention is a growing understanding that animal exploitation is at the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic.ⁱ

Many of the infectious diseases that have appeared in recent decades have directly resulted from humans’ exploitation of animals, both wild and domestic. Capturing, confining, breeding, killing, and eating animals is now known to be the cause of the pandemic we are facing in 2020 and likely beyond. In the case of COVID-19, the source was the speciesist attitudes and actions of those who engage in wildlife trafficking. People are increasingly encroaching into wild areas and capturing animals, taking them from their homes, and confining them to tiny, filthy cages for commerce and profit. Stressed and sick animals in these wretched conditions creates an ideal breeding ground for what are called zoonotic diseases—any disease spread from non-human animals to humans. Zoonotic diseases have caused numerous other epidemics in humans such as Ebola, AIDS, SARS, MERS, all of which originated from butchering and eating wild animals.

However, capturing and eating wildlife is not the only culprit. Farmed animals—the birds, cows, pigs, and goats who we kill and eat—have also been the source of infectious disease outbreaks and mass illness such as Swine Flu (H1N1), Bird Flu, etc. Food-borne illnesses such as E. Coli, Campylobacter, Salmonella, and infections from the MRSA bacterium, are rooted in the farming and slaughter of animals. Further, animal foods are the main source of food-borne sicknesses.ⁱⁱ To prevent these pathogens, farmers administer pharmaceutical drugs en masse to overcrowded, sick animals. In fact, more than half of all antibiotics manufactured in the U.S. are fed to farmed animals. This excessive use of antibiotics is creating a surge of antibiotic resistant pathogens in humans, increasing a looming threat of a pandemic perhaps even greater than COVID-19.ⁱⁱⁱ

Apart from illnesses caused by microbes and infection, there is also overwhelming evidence linking the consumption of animal foods—dairy, eggs, and meat—to the major causes of death in the U.S.—chronic degrative diseases such as stroke, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and numerous cancers.^iv

We should be cautious of any blanket statement that might imply that “all of the things that kill us would be eliminated by our not eating animals,” because such a generalization fails to recognize the nuances of public health—and in the “post-fact era” it is increasingly important for us to make statements based on scientific accuracy and that allow for complexity. Some examples of exceptions to such generalizations would be malaria carried by mosquitos and Lyme disease caused by bacteria transmitted by ticks.

But the truth about zoonotic diseases is frightening enough. According to the Center for Disease Control, three out of four new and novel infectious diseases come from human/animal contact and that contact is almost always the result of humans’ confining, butchering, and eating animals.^v A new doctor-researched white paper reveled that “most if not all” of the world’s major outbreaks of infectious disease since 1900 have been due to some form of animal exploitation.^vi

Beyond the Requisite Veganism – Working Toward Recognizing and Rejecting Speciesism

It is becoming increasingly evident that we would eliminate an immeasurable amount of animal suffering with a widespread cultural shift towards veganism. But what is perhaps less apparent to many is that with such a shift, we could also eliminate an enormous degree of human suffering as well by establishing a worldwide vegan ethic. Our own human fate rests on how we treat animals. In fact, we would not be suffering the current pandemic and international economic and health crisis if, with a wider recognition of the detriment effects of a speciesist worldview, we instead acted with compassion for all animals. Veganism is a pre-paradigm at this point, but while our culture has taken pause to act for the collective care and benefit of others, we may have an opportunity to broaden that circle of compassion to replace the old paradigms that have kept all life on the planet subjugated for too long.

Veganism—the boycott of the products of animal suffering—is certainly an important campaign and message to continue, but I believe that tactically, we must address the paradigmatic causes of animal exploitation and have a deeper understanding of how speciesism is a primary cultural and behavioral obstacle to the efficacy of a successful animal liberation movement.

Thanks to decades of efforts from activists, work of authors and filmmakers, and meaningful movements like Black Lives Matter and Me Too, the violence and oppression of systematic racism and sexism are receiving greater coverage in mainstream media and the national discussions around these issues have come to the forefront of our collective attention. This is valuable progress as we are exposing the ethical flaws in human culture, inequality, discrimination, and violence—and demanding justice and empathy.

I hope that as animal advocates (and as allies to all social justice movements) we can look to the successes of these other movements for inspiration and imagine a world where the media works as diligently to understand and expose speciesism as it does the other paradigms of violence, oppression, and domination that have, thankfully, finally gained the airtime they deserve. It is time to uncover the injustice of treating someone cruelly, taking away their agency, and killing them for profit just because that someone is another species. Science (and common sense) now tell us that, undoubtedly, non-human animals not only feel pain and suffer anxiety and trauma, but that they are profoundly emotional and sentient.^vii Animals grieve, animals dread, animals rejoice—they love life and we have no right to take it from them. We need to call out the injustice of speciesism to root out the underlying source of all human imposed animal suffering, swell the wave of social progress, and carry speciesism, along with the awareness of these other critical social issues, into the light of public scrutiny.

Acknowledgment of Sentience Exposes Speciesism

Signs of the recognition and acceptance of animal sentience are growing around the world. Australia, for example, recently updated its existing animal welfare laws by passing the Animal Welfare Legislation Amendment Bill,^viiiwhich states unequivocally that animals possess the ability to “subjectively feel and perceive the world around them.” The bill updates the language of the original law to recognize that animals are sentient and feel emotion and pain. It further recognizes that animals have “intrinsic value” and deserve a quality of life that reflects this value, stating that people have a duty to care for the “mental welfare” as well as the physical well-being of animals. This is extraordinary progress and furthers the legal status of animals from that of mere property to one that entitles animals to protection and even legal personhood. I would reason further that this legislation recognizes speciesism by acknowledging animals’ value and their potential to suffer under oppression. Hopefully, this legislation will set a precedent for other legislators in other countries to follow.

This progressive legislation follows years of scientific evidence of animal consciousness and sentience, culminating in a statement from prominent cognitive neuroscientists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists, and computational neuroscientist called the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness.^ix In this declaration the scientists declare,

“The weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.”

Back to “Normal?”

As the pandemic drags on, we feel the fatigued desire to get back to normal. But as many of us know, “normal” is a nightmare for animals and for the planet. I am hoping that we will take this time of slowing down to reflect on the state of our world and to make changes in our lifestyles and policies that benefit the planet and the animals. We have the rare opportunity to redefine and reimagine the world, what will we choose? I hope that we continue our collective willingness to make sacrifices for others and extend that care and compassion to non-human animals. When we do go back to “normal,” I hope we do it better.

There are hopeful signs that the quarantine is shifting behaviors. For example, a recent Nielsen study found that the coronavirus crisis has caused vegan meat sales to increase by 280 percent compared to sales in the spring of 2019.^x Horrible and dangerous working conditions in slaughterhouses and meat processing plants has allowed for the rapid spread of the virus among workers. Despite resistance from the companies and even the government, many facilities have been forced to shut down production and close. The consequent sporadic supply of meat is causing prices to rise. Meanwhile, plant-based meat is becoming more affordable and sales are through the roof!

Animal free meat companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are increasing sales, increasing supply, dropping prices, and donating their products to food banks. Beyond Meat’s sales were up 85 percent in the first two months of the lockdown. There has been a 500 percent increase in sales of the Impossible Burger, which was available mostly in restaurants in 2019. The company was already planning to roll out their product in grocery stores in 2020. While available in only about 150 retail stores at the beginning of the year, Impossible Foods plans to have animal-free meat products in more than 10,000 stores by the end of 2020. We are seeing an acceleration of the transition to plant-based meats that was already trending. A silver lining of the coronavirus cloud could be more healthy and ethical consumer habits as we emerge into a new normal.

Broaden the Narrative and Expose Speciesism

We need to broaden the narrative to encompass the concept of speciesism. To transform what we do and how we behave as a society, we must first address who we are in terms of the paradigmatic foundations that drive human behavior. Speciesism is one of the most prominent paradigms of mass violence; we need a global awakening to dispel this myth of dominance—this illusion that we have the right to control, confine, kill, eat, and take away the agency of every other animal on this planet, to the detriment of everyone.

There is the potential for the animals to get lost in philosophical rhetoric; individual accounts of animals must not get lost in the message. It is imperative that we tell their stories and focus on their very real and relevant agony and misery, as well as their jubilance and joy. In addition, however, understanding and rejecting the concept of speciesism by explicitly naming it is critical for taking us to the next level of ethical evolution and motivating the necessary changes so that all sentient beings on this planet can live free of human imposed suffering and death.

A global crisis, especially one of this historic and unprecedented scale, can create a collective introspection on society’s behavior, and this moment of reflection can be a powerful opportunity for change. Given that the current crisis is so closely linked to animal exploitation, it is an important opportunity for our global community to reflect on our relationship to animals and the planet and to emerge from our self-quarantine with a sense of urgency for a worldwide vegan ethic—a resolve for a new normal of compassion and care for everyone—animals and the planet included.

ANIMAL AGRICULTURE is IMMORAL: an anthology

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