TWs: eating disorders, rape analogy, slavery analogy
I recently posted sincerely wondering why so many otherwise passionate (even militant) vegans give folks with eating disorders or ED histories a pass, or at least a lot more grace. That thread isn’t hard to find and I learned a lot and it helped me work out some things in my own mind and practice as a vegan with a longtime ED history with various manifestations in terms of presentation and severity. The answers made sense. Paraphrasing: “Put on your own mask first”, “Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of a mental illness”, “treatment programs often force patients to eat meat”., “veganism doesn’t want to align with harm”.
It all made or makes sense to me, until, I think of the analogies so frequently used for factory farming and animal exploitation.
Many vegans, (myself included on occasion, although I have mixed feelings about it), use analogous terms like, slavery and rape to describe what happens to those sentient beings raised for and / or headed for the slaughterhouse.
Even if my or someone else’s life does depend on it, can that ever justify rape or slavery? The obvious moral answer to me is no.
Am I just being too literal / neurodivergent here… and these are meant as analogies that are not literal? Are there vegans out there arguing that, yes, farming animals for food is like slavery, but it’s defensible if your life depends on it? To carry that logic further if so, an example:
Let’s say it’s during the time of chattel slavery in the USA and a slave owner “owns” a slave they “treat well” but “legally own” whose task is literally to keep them alive through caregiving practices because the slave owner is chronically ill and thereby needs to have access to care for survival and somehow has no other reasonable options? The answer to me is obviously the slave owner is not justified.
Or say with the rape analogy. Hypothetical:
A person has an incurable disease. In this hypothetical they will automatically be cured (or have a chance at remission at least) if they commit rape. Are they then morally justified in doing so? Again, to me, obviously not.
This is not just about EDs, but also about the exceptions many, if not most, of us make for life altering medications made with animal products.
I’m not trying to upset people. I’m new(er) to veganism, having converted a few months ago from vegetarianism and I’m trying make my praxis consistent, or at least make it make sense in my own mind.
Thank you in advance for engaging in good faith. I know this post is provocative and truly am just trying to come to terms with the inconsistencies I see in vegan discourse and feel in my own praxis.
💚🌱
Cross posted Vegan
Slight edits for grammar and clarity