Philosophical Vegan Forum

Hey, so this is a question for all the vegans and pro choisers.
How can you care about bees and chickens and at the same time think that it's okay to abort something that can become a human? Or are there no vegan pro choisers? I'm just asking because I don't understand how both can be together without any problem.

This is remarkably similar to this recent topic: https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... ion#p14080

Yes, vegans are almost exclusively pro-choice. Vegans do not believe in harming sentient beings. Fetuses are not covered by this as they are not sentient.

Jebus wrote: Yes, vegans are almost exclusively pro-choice. Vegans do not believe in harming sentient beings. Fetuses are not covered by this as they are not sentient.

jebus, i did not ever even think of this though i have always been pro-choice

either way, 2048, not all vegans are in it for ethical reasons. many other vegans and I dont eat meat because we are health nuts, its just an added bonus I dont support harming animals

I'm subscribed to a vegan body builder, the youtube name is Humerus Fitness and watching his videos helped me destroy some dis-empowering beliefs I had about veganism like getting enough protein, building a lot of muscle, getting enough calories, etc. and he said he hasnt even looked at the culture of veganism yet though he said he would eventually, and i'm on the same boat as him.

As Jebus said, fetuses are not sentient, particularly early on in the pregnancy.

Late term abortions are more controversial, since fetuses may be sentient in the third trimester (the jury is still out on that).

But there's another very important consideration: Making abortions illegal, even if fetuses were sentient, doesn't really reduce abortions. It's like the "war on drugs". Drugs are really bad, but the war on drugs is even worse.

From the practical perspective in terms of social consequences, everybody should be pro-choice is regard to the law (while it's still OK to be anti-abortion personally).

2048 wrote: How can you care about bees and chickens and at the same time think that it's okay to abort something that can become a human?

Veganism is based on sentience. An early stage fetus is not sentient because the neural pathways for pain perception etc have not been yet established. They are more similar to a brain dead person in terms of sentience.

In terms of ability to become a human, that's an appeal to nature fallacy. Just because they have the natural ability to develop into humans doesn't mean we give non sentient mass of cells rights. We could clone any person from cells artificially, that doesn't mean we afford human rights to all cells just because they could potentially become into humans. By that measure masturbation would be genocide for fertile men.