Slaughterhouse vs. strawberry harvest: Can plants feel pain?
Hey everybody.
It seems that anytime a debate rises over my lifestyle choice with an omnivorous friend, the very first thing they do is get defensive and yell " But you kill plants, their alive too!". While I mostly try to shrug it off, I have not yet been able to come up with a valid response to this point.
Sure I can say " You idiot plants dont have a central nervous system, they dont feel anything", I'm not too sure If I really believe that. Plants have many mechanisms to avoid being attacked - some are poisonous, have thorns, release gases...etc.
Even fruitarians can be questioned..is not plucking a pepper from the plant kinda like taking the egg from the chicken? Anyways guys..I was wondering on your thoughts and opinions.
And how can I respond to my friends without contradicting myself?
Try the vegan steet reply
You’ve got to be kidding me, right? You honestly equate the anguished thrashings of a cow hanging on the slaughter line with that of a stalk of corn ready to be gathered? The repetitive, compulsive swaying of an elephant chained in a circus car with emotional life of the hay with which she was fed? The tortured screams of a pig as the knife is dragged across his throat with a blade of grass as the mower hits it? You honestly do not differentiate despite all obvious indication that animal life and plant life are not equitable in terms of awareness and suffering?
How is it that you get through life? Understanding as you do that each adorable Brussels sprout on your plate has been beheaded with such wanton disregard? A house salad must be viewed as a murderous crime scene to a sensitive being such as you; a crudité plate must seem to be a veritable genocide. How is it that you’ve survived so long without fruits, vegetables and grains? If you do eat these things, how do you quell the voices in your head of all the plants you have plundered that shriek, "No! Not me!Please don’t take my life for a boring little stir-fry! Aren’t I worth more than that?!?"
So you’re either excrutiatingly sensitive or horribly sadistic. Either way, you creep me out. Next question?
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