I was told that Vegans don’t eat any food derived from anything with a face. I asked, why not eggs, and I was told because eggs come from chickens.
I would assume therefore that Vegans would be anti-abortion, since they don’t eat chicken eggs, they would not want to kill a fetus, either, no matter how small. Is this so? Any Vegans out there know if there is an accepted Vegan line regarding the killing of a human embryo/fetus?
This is a factual question, not a debate. I just want to know the Vegan stand and what the reasoning is, not argue about it.
There is no “vegan stand” on abortion. Individual vegans have individual opinions.
Having said that, the vegan objection to eating eggs is not they are eating embryos (I believe most commercial eggs are unfertalized anyway) but that they are harvested from chickens without their will. They see it as stealing from the hens, not as murder.
They think that animals should not be exploited for things like milk or wool either.
I think that they avoid eggs because they feel that the “factory farming” of animals is morally wrong. They feel that chickens who are forced to live a life as egg making factories are living a life of misery and pain. If they had a plot of land with free roaming chickens as pets, they would most likely not have a problem with eating the naturally occurring unfertilized eggs that happened to be laid.
Holy shit! You can be pro-life AND vegan?!? I swear I never even thought that was possible! (though I never thought of the connection till this thread) Well there’s my “new thing learned today”.
I think you mean - “Holy shit! You can be pro-choice AND vegan?”
The same way any system of moral philosophy can be twisted around like a paper clip when it becomes personally or poitically inconvenient. It’s easy to profess profound respect for all living things as long as that perspective only requires recipe adjustments. When that little baby in your belly is going to screw up grad school for you, it turns out that some lives are more scared than others.
I know a vegan who doesn’t give a crap about animals being killed for food, she just chooses not to eat meat. She has battled eating disorders before, and I think her main reason for giving up meat products was fear of them making her fat. She also had an abortion.
I think being a true “Vegan” embodies a philosophical orientation toward living creatures as well as diet. Your friend would probably be more accurately described as a strict vegetarian, not a “Vegan”, even if she calls herself that.
Not according to the definitions I’ve seen. Maybe some “vegan” groups have tried to change the definition but according to the American Heritage dictionary and this web site, there isn’t a philisophical ground you must stand on to be labeled a vegan.
However, IME it’s pretty unusual to be vegan for non-moral reasons. If only because most people who are worried about health, taste, etc, don’t have any reason not to eat rennet, occasional eggs, etc, and hence describe themselves as ‘nearly vegan’ or something. But my experience could be atypical.
It would also be unusual for an atheist to believe in the Easter bunny but that doesn’t mean you can’t be one if you do. The only prerequisite for being labeled an atheist is not believing any gods exist. Given the definitions I provided, a vegan doesn’t have to have any particular moral or philisophical viewpoint. Only what enters their mouth matters.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that there weren’t any non-moral vegans, or that there shouldn’t be, just that it was rare IME. And that that correlation might explain the confusion.
(Hijack: athiesm is an interesting example, since I’ve always agreed with the definiton you gave, but there was another thread where someone initially refused to believe an athiest could believe in the supernatural or afterlife. And indeed many athiests would consider such a person strange, as they’re actually not just atheists, but rationalists or humanists, or something I don’t have a word for.)
The suprise and claims of hypocrisy are suprising to me. I don’t see how one has anything to do with the other. I would expect vegans to tend toward being pro-choice only because both vegans and pro-choicers tend to be Liberal. Tendencies don’t define the whole group though. astro’s cite shows the philosophical beliefs of a certain group of vegans but not all vegans are required to sign that particular petition.
As has been shown, vegas choose their diet for a variety of reasons. Some of which would be inconsistent with being pro-choice but most are nuetral in the abortion debate.
That’s a nice little political jab in GQ. And some people’s lives are more scared than others, a girl I work with screams if you tap her on the shoulder.
So, ** Revtim**, looks like vegans can eat abortions, as long as they weren’t aborted for the sole purpose of eating. So far looks like (some) vegans can eat roadkill, eggs from pet chickens, and abortions. What sick, demented people.
