An Animal Rights Essay That Will Inspire You to Be Vegan
If you’re reading this, I assume it’s because you’re an animal lover and you care about animals and animal rights and/or you’re vegan-curious! Yay!! 🎉
My Vegan Journey 🌱
Before I try to convince you to be vegan, I thought I should share a bit about my own vegan journey, which began in the womb. Seriously!
I was born about a week early, and the family joke has always been that I was trying to escape the bad food. Why? Because my parents had calamari 🐙 for dinner the night before I was born and I’ve never liked seafood of any kind.
Also, growing up Jewish, pig 🐖 products were never part of my diet.
As a teenager, I was eating something my grandma cooked and commented how good it was. She told me it was lamb! 🐑 I was HORRIFIED, and promptly threw up. I swore off lamb, but didn’t make the connection to the rest of our animal kin quite yet.
In college, I learned about the beef 🐄 industry both the environmental impacts, and the horrible way the cows are treated. I promptly got rid of beef. You’d think I’d have been able to generalize to dairy, but I didn’t, yet. Nor did I connect it to other animals used for food at that point.
At some point in my early 30s, which was the beginning of my spiritual growth journey, I figured out these connections. I learned about the egg industry, and since eggs 🥚 always smelled a little like death to me anyway, out they went.
The last animal products to go were poultry 🐔 and honey. 🐝
I’ve been vegan for about 10 years at this point, and I still occasionally learn that some obscure ingredient I wasn’t aware of before isn’t vegan, so I’m continually adjusting my diet and product choices.
Also, while many vegans eat almonds, I do not because of how the almond industry treats bees.
Basically, each step of my vegan journey was welcoming in of compassion rather than giving up something.
Animal Rights and Animal Cruelty in Agriculture
Animals are sentient beings who feel pain, suffer, and experience joy just like humans. Yet, every year billions of animals are exploited, abused, and killed for human consumption.
In animal agriculture, animals are often kept in cramped, unsanitary conditions, and subjected to cruel treatment. 😢
They are routinely mutilated without pain relief, confined to small spaces, and deprived of their natural habitats while having their behaviors and bodies modified to suit human desires. This causes immense suffering and stress, leading to physical and mental health problems. 😭
When you choose to be vegan, you are making a statement that you do not support this cruel industry and are taking steps to prevent animal suffering. 🌱
I call it “voting with your dollar” and “living your conscience.” Both make powerful statements about who you are, what you believe in, and the world you want to live in. Remember, businesses, including animal ag, are in the game to make money. When you stop buying what they’re selling, you chip into their profits. 💰
The more people who choose to go vegan, the less money the animal ag industry makes, and the more they’ll start to choose other ways to make money - without the animal cruelty.
Since we know you already care about animal rights, the best thing you can do is to become vegan. By doing so, you can help reduce the demand for animal products and promote a more compassionate and sustainable world. Woohoo!
Animals Feel
As we said, animals are sentient beings with feelings. They experience love, fear, sadness, etc. the same way we do. And if you’re an animal lover, you already know this is true. You’ve seen it with cats, dogs, etc.
But if you’re truly an animal lover, that should include ALL animals, including the ones used for food. 🥓 Here are some things you maybe haven’t seen, which will help you see the ways in which all animals feel.
When cows 🐄 in the dairy industry have their babies yanked away so humans can steal their milk, both the momma cow and the baby cow cry. Not with tears, but with sad, anxious moos.
Animals being brought to slaughter sense something is wrong and try to escape. 🐖 Just like you would if someone was trying to kidnap and kill you.
Which leads me to have to talk about ethics for a second. While ethics in general, and animal ethics specifically, are always a matter for debate, I do hope we can all agree that killing any living being who doesn’t wish to die isn’t ethical.
And before you jump with the “what ifs,” this isn’t about those. This is about the society we’re living in today. IF, and it’s a big if, one of your “what ifs” became a reality, everyone, including me, would have to revisit all our existing beliefs. But that’s a subject for a different essay, not an animal rights essay!
You’ll notice, I haven’t mentioned animal testing yet. It’s certainly a big factor in a vegan lifestyle. So big that it’s really another essay topic in itself. If you’d like to learn more about it, check out World Animal Foundation and DoSomething.
The Environmental Impacts of Eating Meat
Veganism is also an environmentally conscious choice. 🌳 Animal agriculture, both in the United States and across the globe, is responsible for a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, and deforestation.
Animal agriculture currently uses 26% of the planet's ice-free land to graze livestock and 33% of existing croplands are used to feed animals used for food. How crazy is that?
This is land we could be doing so many other things with! We could:
Leave it natural for trees, plants, and wild kin
Create open spaces where humans can enjoy relatively untouched nature
Build eco-friendly homes and ease some of the population crowding
And that’s just a few ideas!
By choosing to be vegan, you reduce your carbon footprint 👣 and help mitigate the effects of climate change.
A vegan diet requires less land, water, and energy than animal agriculture, making it a more sustainable and environmentally friendly choice. ✨
Health Benefits of Becoming Vegan
Being vegan 🥒 also has health benefits. A vegan diet helps reduce the risk of chronic diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, and certain types of cancer.
It can also help you maintain a healthy weight, improve digestion, and increase energy levels.
By choosing to be vegan, you are taking care of your health while also promoting animal rights and environmental sustainability. Talk about a win-win! 🎉
Being vegan is not just a personal choice. It’s a powerful way to promote animal rights and environmental sustainability.
When you become vegan, you’re making a statement that you do not support the exploitation and suffering of animals. You’re taking steps to promote a more compassionate and sustainable world.
So, if you care about animal rights and want to make a difference, consider adopting a vegan lifestyle. 🥑
And if you’re ready to take the next steps on your journey of living with more compassion, check out my resources and snag my free download!