You’ve watched the presentations and have read the other material on this site. You want to know what you can do to help achieve the goal of abolishing animal exploitation.
The answer is simple.
The most important thing you can do is go vegan.
- Veganism is not merely a matter of diet or lifestyle. Veganism is your personal expression of your endorsement of the abolitionist approach.
- Veganism means that you do not eat any animal products—no meat, fish, chicken or other birds, dairy, eggs, or honey. It means that you do not wear fur, leather, wool, or silk, and that you do not use products that contain animal by-products or that have been tested on animals.
- Every person who goes vegan results in a decrease in demand for animal products.
- Veganism is something that each of us can do now. No campaign, legislation, litigation, is required. You can just do it. It is completely within your control.
- And it is easy. It’s just a matter of really taking nonhuman animals seriously and not just saying that you take them seriously. It’s just a matter of recognizing that whatever pleasure you get from a steak or ice cream cone, or wearing a leather coat, it cannot possibly justify inflicting pain, suffering, and death on an animal.
- Giving up flesh is not enough. There is no moral distinction that can be drawn between meat on one hand, and dairy, eggs, or other animal foods on the other. Animals used for dairy and eggs are treated horribly and end up in the same slaughterhouse as meat animals.
- There is probably more suffering in a glass of milk than in a steak.
- “Free-range” or “humanely raised” animals or animal products are not the answer. Those labels may make you feel better, but they don’t do anything for the nonhumans you’re exploiting.
- Just as you could not consistently have been an abolitionist with respect to human slaves if you owned slaves, you cannot consistently be an abolitionist with respect to nonhuman slavery if you continue to eat, wear, or use the flesh and products derived from nonhuman animals.
And after you go vegan, start educating everyone you know in creative, non-violent ways about veganism and explaining to them the ideas that motivated you.
- You don’t need money, or a large animal organization, or anything—but your own decision—to help achieve abolition.