My livestream of this essay. Part of the transcript: “This How To Go Vegan podcast episode titled ““Humane”: What’s in a Word”covers a question some of us might have and that is: Isn’t it okay to eat animal products if they’re “free range”, “cage-free”, “organic”, locally-raised, or “humanely raised”? I’ll talk about this topic informally, and personally.

Let’s talk about the term “humane”, a term we hear in the public sphere mostly in relation to animals. The word “humane” promotes the idea that there are “compassionate” and “kind” ways we can exploit sentient animals. We tend to only talk about “humane” in relation to humans when we talk about imprisonment, euthanasia, solitary confinement, detention, or killing people. When we hear the word “humane”, we should expect that the outcome for those involved will, no matter what transpires, be less than desirable and will involve some suffering and injustice at best.

In the case of sentient animals, our application of what we believe is “humane” for them, if applied to humans, would be considered torture. In other words, any time that word “humane” is uttered, it’s almost always the case that something morally questionable and possibly unjust is going to follow, whether it’s execution, refugees, interrogation techniques, asylum seeker detention centres, industrial prisons, or in this case, the animal industry and regulation of animal exploitation. We know that it will ultimately mean suffering for someone.” You can find the whole transcript here http://www.howtogovegan.org/humane/

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