I now have a good answer to the question, Where is the weirdest place youve given the vegan talk? As Im lying face down on the surgical table, moments before the pathologist starts carving into my shoulder, the nurse says, Garys a vegan. I was not exactly in the mood to defend my veganism in such a vulnerable state. What ensued was quite an interesting discussion. He started off by asking if I am vegan for health reasons. I jumped into the ethics of veganism and explained that people who dont eat animals for their health eat a plant based diet. Vegans dont support using animals for food, clothing, entertainment and animal experimentation. Lots of, you dont eat eggs? how about fish? Lots of nopes. He talked about how he does not eat veal and explained to the nurse how they live in crates. He called it torture. I segued into gestation crates, which he then brought up how intelligent pigs are. He called gestation crates torture. Later he talked about how some country banned duck liver. I talked about Mercy For Animals foie gras investigation, how they are force fed. He then said, It really sounds like all animal production is torture. Bingo. He said he eats a lot chicken and that he must not respect them. He talked about a story out of England where a few pigs escaped a slaughter house and jumped into a body of water to escape. He said, They must know whats going to happen to them. He also mentioned a photo he recently saw of two sheep getting ready to go into slaughter. He said, They must have been terrified. We talked about Animal Place and how they rescue nonhumans from factory farms and small farms. He liked the idea of farm sanctuaries. He said when he was eight years old, he realized he was eating animals and felt that it was wrong. I told him about Thomas Ponce and how he realized he was a eating chickens when he was four and went vegetarian. He was impressed. He said that when he was in medical school, they had to do surgeries on a live dog. He said before the first surgery, the dog was really sweet. He said they did six or seven surgeries on the same dog and he was not nice after the first surgery. He knew it was wrong. We talked about Frederick and Douglass, animal testing, PTSD in dogs, etc. I brought up the story of the dairy cow who hid her son out in the field so that the farmer wouldnt take him, like he had taken all of her newborn children. I talked about how cows had to be forcibly impregnated, their children are stolen, what happens to the female calves and what happens to the male calves. He said, they must know. What a beautiful story. All the while, he is digging into my skin with a scalpel and removing cancer cells. It was a creepy/interesting experience to say the least.
Posted on: Thu, 10 Apr 2014 00:37:42 +0000
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