Prophetic
Church Animal Ethics Guidelines
by John Mekdeci,
propheticchurch.com
As of: 16 Jan, 2011
These guidelines are not mandatory on the membership, but are expressed for Church guidance.
In my view, regarding animal ethics, there are three classes of animal products:
Primary (1º): These products directly and obviously cause serious animal cruelty:
Meat (ie. animal flesh as food, including
fish): You are asking for animal bodyparts to be served up for you, which is
obvious cruelty. It is illegal, unlawful, and unhealthy to take meat from
animals dying naturally even if you wanted to. There is no escaping cruelty
here, which, at the minimum, is killing innocent animals. However the industrial
profit and production incentives are towards adding much additional cruelty,
ie. in a system of life-long confinement and torment.
Wild and organic meat usually involve less cruelty (but it is still
killing).
Some forms of meat and/or its preparation are especially
cruel, such as boiling lobsters alive or production of foie gras.
Fur and Skins: Skin is an essential animal bodypart, so you are demanding death somehow. Although it's theoretically possible to take skins from animals who died naturally, I've never heard of anyone imagining that commercial fur is obtained that way (it would be extremely costly and low-quality). The industrial incentive is extremely strong towards hunting, trapping, or raising animals only for taking their skin. Some skins are secondary products of the slaughter industry. Cruelty here is very high, with not only life-long confinement, but some animals actually getting skinned alive(!).
Secondary (2º): These products indirectly cause animal cruelty in a strong way:
Milk: It is theoretically possible to take a trace amount of milk after the calf has had his, but the industrial incentive is extremely strong towards taking calves away so they don't drink up most of the milk it is your whole business to collect. There is much more cruelty than this also, in both the manipulation of female reproduction system and elimination of males. It is also biologically strange to want to consume the milk from another mammal.
Eggs: It is theoretically
possible to obtain a trace amount of unfertilized eggs from a natural group
of chickens. However the industrial incentive is extremely strong towards
raising them only for egg production, and doing many cruel manipulations on
them to produce more. Males are eliminated (killed) early.
It is also strange to want to eat the fetuses of another animal.
Honey: Although it is theoretically possible to obtain a trace amount of honey as it drips from the hive, the industrial incentive is strongly towards running hives as an exploitation of bees to the extent that they are left with neither honey nor even their lives at the end of season, suffering other interventions also.
Bee pollen: There really is no nice way to harvest this: the bees resist giving up the pollen they worked all day to collect. Collection is from right off the bee. It would be a primary class except that it's not at all obvious, by ordering pollen, what you are doing to bees.
Wool: In theory there are ways to collect some wool with little harm to the animals, but the industrial incentive is very strong towards cruelty. Unnatural genetics, mulesing, rough shearing, over-shearing, and slaughter when wool production or quality drops with age are common.
Tertiary (3º): These products are derivative by-products and trace ingredients which are much more the production choice of the manufacturer than the consumption choice of the consumer. They are simply not required to make what the consumer is asking for.
Gelatin: a disturbing product derived from animal connective tissue, but so common in both desserts and, worse, pills, that it's still difficult to avoid. For example, if you depend on a supplement or pill, maybe you can find a gelatin-free form and maybe you can't.
Commercial soaps: most commercial soap is derived from animal fat (eg. "tallow"), but plant-based soaps are available.
Pet foods including animal by-products: these ingredients are questionable not only on an ethical level but also on a health level. Vegetarian pet foods are on the market, and some people feed their pets real food they know or make themselves.
Other Trace ingredients: We live in a world where we don't make all of our food and products ourselves. Some manufacturers still don't understand that animal ingredients are unnecessary, and often throw one in without realizing it ruins their product. Some ingredients are not even clear, from the label, as to whether their origin is animal or not. If you're not asking for something animal, it's up to you, ie. your ethics, your needs, and your options, to decide how much to insist on a pure diet.
Hospitality: This is where you are someone's guest, eating food they already bought, and you need to decide how far you want to go questioning the ingredients. Animal ethics, guest ethics, and other ethics may all come into play. As long as you're not asking for or eating anything overtly animal, ethical responsibility may not be something to worry about.
Other Notes:
Remember that doing something is a lot better than doing nothing.
If you want to be a vegetarian, avoid the primary products (in red, above). A vegetarian is someone who consumes no animal flesh.
Note that a vegetarian does not eat fish, because fish are animals.
If you want to be a pure vegetarian, avoid both the primary and secondary products (in red and brown, above). A pure vegetarian, or vegan diet, is someone who consumes no animal products of any kind.
In both cases you should be aware of the third group, tertiary products, and try to minimize them.
Don't allow yourself to be accused by people who do the same thing they accuse
you of 100x more abundantly. For example, don't allow a meat-eater to
accuse you of eating cookies with traces of egg and butter when they openly do
that. The more they accuse you of what they do abundantly the more they
condemn themselves, because there is one moral standard for all of us, not
two.
If they harp on the definitions explain to them that you are a
non-absolute vegan (or
non-absolute vegetarian), and
not trying to be an absolute one.
Don't take responsibility for what isn't your doing. When you live with
animal-abusing people it is difficult to avoid indirect animal abuse because
of their decisions. Don't take on the guilt for what's not directly your
decision.
If you find yourself faced with guilt of
involvement in animal abuse, try asking yourself 1) if
your
objective is evil, 2) if
your
method is evil, and 3) if reasonable non-animal alternatives are available.
If the answer to all three questions is "no", then I recommend you don't
consider it an animal issue of your responsibility. It may be an animal
issue for someone, but not for you. Here are some examples:
medical research using animals: the objective is good, the method is evil, and non-animal alternatives are usually available. So it fails.
transportation using animals in pre-car societies: the objective is good, the method is questionable, and there are not reasonable alternatives available. The method is the weakpart and makes it ethically dangerous. Make sure your working animal is well-treated at least.
Note that an animal advocate is ethically unrestricted from buying animal items when obtaining them second-hand, such as at a thrift store. This is because although buying something new off the rack triggers new production to replace the sold item, producers don't make for second-hand selling. The only thing you are doing is saving the used item from a landfill.
Pet relationships, ie. where the animal is provided with reasonable care and rarely forced to do anything they don't want to, are OK, in my opinion, and often of symbiotic benefit.
The following definitions may be useful:
Vegetarian: a statement of diet; eats no animal flesh (ie. excludes: red meat, poultry, fish, shellfish, etc.)
Pure Vegetarian: a statement of diet; eats no animal products of any kind (ie. excludes all animal flesh plus: milk, eggs, honey, etc.)
Vegan: a statement about both diet and philosophy: no usage of animals or their products for food or any other purpose. Since this philosophy is not derived from or based on Christ we do not use a vegan philosophy model in the Prophetic Church.