Dan Hooley, co-chair of Calvin College's Students for Compassionate Living which helped sponsor this past weekend, recently wrote "Taking Animals Seriously" for Calvin's student newspaper Chimes.  He graciously gave me permission to reprint the excellent perspective here:  

Consider the following question: “Is it wrong to cause unnecessary pain, suffering, and death to non-human animals?”  My hunch is that when asked this question in the abstract, the vast majority of people would say yes, of course it is wrong.  Some might find the question silly, in light of the obviousness of its answer.  However, in our actions most of us do not follow this rather obvious moral truth.  While the unnecessary pain, suffering, and death of certain animals (like cats, dogs, and other cute pets and animals) is considered wrong, and the interests of these animals generally enters into our moral considerations, the same is not the case for the animals we raise for food and use for clothing and entertainment.

Our reactions to animal suffering usually depend upon the type of animal in question.  So, for example, when allegations and evidence came out that the football player Michael Vick had been holding brutal dog fights on his residence and often killed the dogs that did not perform well (through drowning and electrocution), Americans were outraged.  It is not hard to see why.  Americans care about dogs, and we did not like to think about these animals suffering.  However, I think it would be wrong to dismiss this as merely an emotional or sentimental reaction.  Most of us recognized that we should be concerned with the pain and suffering of these dogs.  It also was clear that any sort of pleasure Michael Vick and his friends got from watching dogs brutally fight did not justify their suffering and death.  These animals should not be treated this way.  Michael Vick could do plenty of other things for fun that did not hurt the dogs.  The dogs have their own needs and interests that should be respected.  We recognized that they are not commodities that we can use however we please.

Unfortunately, we do not react similarly to the pain, suffering, and death experienced every day by the cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals raised and used for our food.  Every year over 50 billion land animals are raised and slaughtered for food. In the U.S. alone, the number is around 9 billion.  The vast majority of these animals are raised and killed in conditions that you and I, if we were to investigate the matter, are likely to find deplorable.  While the specifics will vary somewhat by type of animal, the vast majority of the pigs, chickens, and cows raised in the US come from intensive confinement facilities (frequently referred to as “factory farms”), where the animals live cramped, stress-filled lives, endure unanaesthetized mutilations, and frequently experience painful deaths.  The animals’ natural instincts (sometimes as basic as moving around, stretching their limbs, or nesting) are constantly thwarted and prevented.  They are treated like commodities, not living, breathing creatures that experience the world and have emotional lives.  Chickens that lay eggs are stuffed into battery cages the size of a file drawer with several other birds where they can’t even spread their wings and sows, the female pigs that are used for breading, are confined in tiny gestation crates where they do not have the space to turn around.

Imagine our reaction if the animals living in these crates were not pigs, but dogs?  We would be outraged.  If the plight of the dogs Michael Vick fought arouses anger in us, if we view this as an injustice, we also should react similarly to the miserable plight of the farm animals we raise for food.  Just as the suffering Michael Vick caused his dogs was unnecessary, so too is the suffering, pain, and premature death of the farm animals we raise for food.  The fact that dogs look one way and pigs another is hardly relevant to the treatment they deserve.

Unfortunately, this unnecessary pain, suffering, and death experienced by farm animals is something most of us actively participate in and support everyday, when we buy a cheeseburger at Johnny’s or purchase a carton of eggs at the grocery store.  Some might object to my claim that the pain and death that animals raised for food experience is unnecessary, saying we need these animals for food. However, this objection can no longer be held.  We know today that the vast majority of people would suffer no ill health from the elimination of meat and other animal products from their diet.  In fact, quite the reverse.

Nor can it be denied that industrial animal agriculture is causing massive environmental degradation.  This is happening on many levels, in the erosion of topsoil, the polluting of streams and rivers, and the depletion of forests to name just a few.  Perhaps most disconcerting is the contribution of animal agriculture to global warming.  A 2006 report by the United Nations titled Livestock’s Long Shadow revealed that animal agriculture contributes more to global warming than all of transportation.

Thus, in raising animals for food we are causing pain to and then killing billions of animals, it is not good for our health, and it is destroying our planet.  And the crazy thing is, none of it is necessary.  It is hard to see how we can defend this practice. It is hard to see what could justify such senseless pain, suffering, and death when all of it is unnecessary.  Any pleasure we get from eating the flesh or by-products of animals surely cannot outweigh the suffering and death they experience, especially when there are plenty of healthy and delicious alternatives that we can eat.

I’d like to issue a challenge to the Calvin community.  The challenge I have is not what you might think.  I don’t want you to give up meat and all animal by-products right now.  Rather, I challenge you to investigate where your food comes from, to learn about the conditions the animals you eat are raised in, and to think about whether or not this is a justifiable practice.  I’d like you to consider whether or not this is something that Christians, working towards creating a more peaceful and just world, should be supporting.

Dan Hooley is a senior and co-chair of Students for Compassionate Living. His email is hooley.dan@gmail.com. He welcomes all comments and questions.  (I left out Dan's final paragraph which gives an invitation to Wake Up Weekend; the photo, courtesy Matt Halteman (copyright), is of Dan (middle) and friends who won awards for their highly inventive vegan chili at the Weekend!)