In an amazing conversation with a dairy vet who says they are deeply concerned with ethics & non-human animal welfare.

I thought interesting to share some anonymous, paraphrased thoughts from them. A thread:

- Everyone involved in animal agri. has compassion for animals

1/n

- Farmed animals have good lives
- A short, good life is better than no life at all
- Farming creates lots of new lives so that's a good thing
- Killing when done right is as painless as euthanasia
- Applying the above logic to farming human toddlers would be horrific though

2/n

- Vegans are anti-animal because they want many fewer farmed animals to exist
- Ending animal farming suddenly would require euthanasia/mass sterilization
- Farmed animal species might go extinct
- Farmed animals have better lives than those in the wild

3/n

- Reproduction is natural and farm animals get to experience it, whereas companion animals are often spayed/neutered
- Animal sanctuaries sometimes have bad conditions and are too reluctant to euthanise

4/n

- Forced artificial insemination of cows is similar to LGBTQ humans using IVF. Why the objection?
- Animals can't consent so it's fine for us to do things to them without their consent
- Urban vegans don't understand real farming or animal welfare

5/n

- Vets are passionate about welfare and do try to see the world from the animals' point of view
- Calves and human toddlers are both lovely and sentient and should be cherished to the greatest extent possible. We shorten the life of one to help nourish the other

6/n

- Experiencing the death of animals can be emotionally taxing. Hiding death has decreased our reverence for life
- Vegans don't talk about how to actually improve the lives of animals. They just want to prevent new ones being created

7/n

- The suffering we cause to non-humans is morally negative but it's justified because humans need to eat non-humans to survive/be healthy
- Improving animal farming rather than ending it is our best hope to help animals

8/n

- Vegan ideology is unfairly turning people against animal farming, but farms do need to do better on welfare and transparency
- Self-righteous vegans are annoying. Only drug dealers are seen more negatively

9/n

- The most vulnerable humans would suffer from universal veganism (children, women, indigenous peoples, the poor). Veganism is anti-progressive
- While some slaughter is "humane", there are some troubling concerns re: killing of young pigs/birds

10/n

- Slaughtering animals for food is equivalent to compassionate euthanasia in humans
- If we don't kill farm animals we'll have over-population problems, so will then have to kill them

11/n

- Vegans need to propose an "exit plan" for animal farming. "Animal ag is evil" is not enough
- Putting billions of animals into sanctuaries is not realistic
- Vegans are, paradoxically, calling for the death of most farm animals & preventing the future existence of many

12/n

- All life consumes other life
- It's hard to keep non-human animals from breeding
- Too much vegan conversation is about the vegans themselves, not the animals
- Ending animal farming would have a net negative effect on farmed animals and humans at a population level

13/n

- Ending animal farming via sterilisation or euthanasia is equivalent to sterilising or euthanising "the poor in the world" if they have lives not worth living
- Veganism is an "anti-animal" position because it wants to see fewer farm animals

14/n

- Did read @PeterSinger and then took a choice to work within the system to help animals, rather than to end the system
- Farmers transitioning (e.g. @RancherAdvocacy), sanctuaries and increased veganism have minimal impact for animals.

END