The distorted mentality of killing animals

http://www.andrea-schroeder.com/VCeelen4a.html

So I was sitting in the car last week, coming home from the grocery store, and going over a recent debate about animal cruelty and veganism. i was ranting against the illogical and sometimes just plain mind numbingly stupid arguments for meat eating that I often get. These arguments tend to be:

• Animals don't have a concept of death.
• Animals don't know what's going on when they feel pain.
• Animals aren't as intelligent as humans.
• I enjoy eating dead animals therefore it surely must be morally justifiable.
• The animals are killed quickly and humanely.
• I eat free range animals which makes it morally justifiable.

Being a mother, the thought suddenly struck me- animals aren't much different on an of these levels than a baby or a young toddler.

• Babies and toddlers don't have a concept of death.
• Babies and toddlers don't know what's going on when they feel pain.
• Babies and toddlers aren't as intelligent as adults (or even as some animals)

The other arguments, when applied to babies and toddlers are.. just reprehensible. Beyond disgusting. From the meat eater's perspective this would be: I enjoy eating the flesh of babies so it's okay, babies are killed quickly and humanly, I only eat free range babies (although in most cases people eat animals from factory farms which could be comparable to beating a baby every day and then finally killing it after a year or so).

Now, people will say this is extreme thinking, but stay with me for a moment. Can you logically give me one actual difference between a pig, who is certainly more intelligent than your newborn, and a human newborn? You could argue that the pain caused to the family makes it less morally justifiable so assume the baby is an orphan and no one would care- or that the parents themselves wanted to kill the baby for various reasons (have you seen the news? It happens people).

The one and only argument left is: because humans are superior to animals. Except that we're really not. If you have a single intelligent brain cell in your head you know that we evolved. In evolution nothing is superior to anything else. You evolve to fill a niche, you evolve in the way that best benefits your survival. So great, humans evolved in a particular way (that we'd better be incredibly grateful for!) and animals evolved in their own way, for their own niche. Evolutionarily speaking we're equals (and no, the ability to kill doesn't make you superior.. if it did we'd be praising  murderers, not locking them up).

It goes without saying that none of the arguments for meat eating are logical or morally justifiable, but it just really struck me how brainless they actually are. It's sort of like that light bulb moment you have when you realize that religions make absolutely no sense. You knew it before but suddenly you really know it.

On certain levels we apply this same brainless callousness to other humans as well. Babies, as much as people are horrified by the examples I gave and would genuinely be horrified if these things happened in real life (do you really want to think about a baby having it's legs broken, strung up, then being skinned while still alive after having it's throat slit? I didn't think so), babies still tend to be thought of as less than adults. Less important, having less needs, less deserving of many things. We genitally mutilate our baby boys here in America routinely, we leave our babies upset and crying out for love and attention for hours in their cribs because we somehow think babies need less human contact than anyone else, we physically assault our children - something we'd go to jail for doing to another adult.. sometimes you have to really wonder what is wrong with the human species. For all of our superior attitudes, can we really claim superiority when this is how we treat other animals, both human and non human?