No need for meat
October 10, 1991
This letter is in response to Todd Obmascik’s letter criticizing vegetarianism.
Todd, given that you are a business major, it’s not surprising you feel that the issues concerning the massacre of animals can be reduced to a simple financial matter. You’ll go far with this attitude. Anything is permissible if it bolsters the economy, eh?
You are quite mistaken however, as are most Americans, in your view. There is no reasonable argument to support the continuation of confining, torturing, slaughtering, and eating other creatures.
Are you aware that meat provides not a single necessary nutrient that cannot be attained through other sources? The practice of eating animals is both detrimental to our body and to the environment.
You claim that if the citizens of this nation stopped eating meat then meat producers and many farmers would lose their jobs. Admittedly, this would happen Todd, but use your imagination a bit.
If suddenly there was no slab of meat on your plate you would then be compelled to fill this bloodless void with something else. You or some other ambitious individual would realize there is money to be made in the manufacturing of grains, vegetables, fruits and other alternatives.
And besides, by your reasoning we should also not try to curtail crime so prison guards won’t lose their jobs or end a war because then GE would have to stop making bombs.
Todd, can you honestly say it’s not wrong to exploit animals? Are we justified in our actions by the simple fact that we can overpower them and they cannot voice their objections? No animal should be sacrificed for food or to convince some researcher that the lobotomized rat does indeed run the maze slower than the non-lobotomized one.
I suppose this does not bother us because animals do not look like us alive. But animals are in fact emotional, thinking creatures. They are similar to us both mentally and physiologically, otherwise there would be no point in using them for experimentation; the results would be meaningless if they were unlike humans.
Another thing to consider: Why do we call some animals pets and other dinner? Certainly there is a distinction, but it’s purely arbitrary. And yes that’s actual blood you see dripping from your hamburger.
You don’t like it that Tracy Woods associates eating meat with cannibalism; certainly this is a harsh term. But then again when you see that your delicious meal is actually skin, muscle, fat, vein, cartilage and bone, don’t you stop to consider what it is you’re eating?
Christopher R. Herbaugh
Graduate Student
Philosophy
Annie Foresburg
Sophomore
Undecided