Can we talk about bodily autonomy for a hot sec? Because it’s a big reason why I advocate veganism.
Diana (Image via Heartland Farm Sanctuary)
So you and I and everyone around us each live in a body, and we all have different levels of comfort, safety, and ability that determine what we can do — both in the sense of being physically able to do it, and being emotionally okay with doing it — based on our different life experiences. And, if we hope to embody radical humility, then we have to understand others’ life experiences as legitimate and deserving of respect. Put two-and-two together: we as humans who strive for radical humility must respect the comfort, safety, and ability levels of the bodies of the people whose life experiences are different from our own.
That’s respecting bodily autonomy: each person’s ability to determine what they do or don’t do with their own body, as long as it does not infringe upon the bodily autonomy of others. It’s a pretty major feminist tenet. And although I would argue that it’s damn near impossible to enjoy full bodily autonomy under capitalism and state governance, I think that we can work together to ensure that we as a community contribute as little as possible to the social controls that infringe upon our ability to feel safe and comfortable in our own bodies.
Mister (Image via Heartland Farm Sanctuary)
That’s why consent is great and necessary, that’s why asking people before you hug them is super important, that’s why commenting on people’s size and shape is unacceptable…and that’s why I don’t eat other animals or their secretions. The body of a pig, cow, chicken, duck, lizard, or what-have-you does not belong to me, nor do any of the things that come out of their bodies (eggs, milk, etc.).
In some situations with other animals, it’s pretty clear whether or not they want me to be doing something with their bodies. For example, if Diana moseys up to me in the goat pasture at the sanctuary where I’m working this summer and starts nuzzling her head against my hand, I’m fairly confident that she’s asking me to pet her. Or if I enter Mister’s duck enclosure and he starts nipping at my legs, I’m definitely not going to bother him any more than necessary (like to stick his bowl of salad in there at dinnertime).
Sweet Pea (Image via Heartland Farm Sanctuary)
So unless Sweet Pea lays her egg, picks it up with her beak, and sets it in my hand, I’m not going to claim it as my own. Unless Beatrice rips off a piece of her own flesh, trots up to me and sets it at my feet, I’m sure as hell not going to take it. Otherwise, the lines of communication between me and other animals are not clear enough to ensure informed consent among all parties involved, so I’ll air on the side of caution and assume that they do not want me doing something with their bodies…including consuming it or what comes from it.
Moral of the story: please don’t do things to other people’s bodies unless they explicitly ask you to. That includes other animals. By taking this request to heart, we can work to support each other in feeling comfortable and safe in our own bodies, even when we cannot in the rest of the world.
Beatrice (Image via Heartland Farm Sanctuary)
In solidarity, Ali.
References
“I’ve been thinking about….” No, That’s not how Abortion is. 13 March 2014. Web. 6 June 2015.
Kate. “Bodily autonomy….” Vegan-Vulcan. 23 May 2014. Web. 6 June 2015.
—. “Power and privilege (Vegan BDSM pt 3).” Ethical Kink. 28 March 2014. 6 June 2015.
—. “Vegan BDSM.” Ethical Kink. 18 March 2014. Web. 6 June 2015.
I love this post, and the pictures that accompany it. Too often I see things (especially supposedly funny clips on YouTube) where people are touching animals in ways that are clearly not with their comfort in mind. I hope we can progress to where consent becomes a much more important watchword than it seems to be at the moment.
Thank you so much! I wholeheartedly agree. I know, aren’t the pictures fantastic? The animals in them are even better in real life. 🙂
This is a great, thought provoking article. And Sweet Pea is pretty much the best so you can’t go wrong there 🙂
Thanks, Todd! So good to meet you at Heartland the other day, too. 🙂
This is a fantastic post! Thank you for it.
I wish someone would get this message across to special interest legislators here in California and across the country zealously seeking to eliminate exemptions to vaccine mandates, and thus eliminate informed consent and the right to bodily autonomy.
Thanks, Luke! I’m really glad the post resonated with you. Though I do think one could argue that allowing exemptions to mandatory vaccinations would infringe upon others’ bodily autonomy as it would increase the risk for the spread of disease, so I think this argument gets a little more complicated in that case.
I’ve been trying to figure out why anti-vivisection and anti-vaccination have been historically linked. Reading about a bunch of turn of the 20th century Brits, and it seems like most of those leftists opposed to vivisection were also against vaccination and vice versa. Is it because vaccinations resulted from animal testing? Earnest question. Because I really don’t really get it.
Indeed, proponents of bills across the country, including here in California, do make that
argument. I absolutely agree that it’s a complicated issue, but for reasons other than what you suggest. Make no mistake though, coercing someone, under duress, to be subjected, or have their children subjected to pharmaceutical product, medical interventions with known risks is a direct assault on informed consent and bodily autonomy whereas the *supposed* threat of a rise in vaccine-targeted infectious diseases is not (without getting into the problems with the *theory* of “herd immunity”).
As a parent who’s been at the State Capitol repeadedly resisting this assault in California, I’d like to offer another perspective on the less often publicized risk involved in one-size-fits-all mandatory vaccination policies with no philosophical exemption.
Vaccine failure, waning immunity, vaccine-targeted disease outbreaks in vaccinated populations, and current relevant industry (http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/04/health-vaccine-idUSL1N0YQ0W820150604) and government whistleblowers (http://www.morganverkamp.com/august-27-2014-press-release-statement-of-william-w-thompson-ph-d-regarding-the-2004-article-examining-the-possibility-of-a-relationship-between-mmr-vaccine-and-autism/) aside, this issue gets less complicated when knowing that, by act of Congress, vaccine manufacturers have been granted immunity from all liability in the event that their products, which have known serious risks, cause injury or death http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/billofhealth/2013/06/21/guest-post-crack-down-on-those-who-dont-vaccinate-a-response-to-art-caplan/. This arrangement gives those manufacturers ZERO incentive to ensure that they are creating the safest possible products to be injected into our kids, and unsurprisingly the vaccine schedule has exploded, more than doubled, since that time. These are the same pharmaceutical companies that pay out many millions/billions of dollars in criminal and civil penalties for their fraudulant business practices and criminal conduct https://blog.nader.org/2014/09/12/the-havoc-of-the-unrestrained-drug-industry/. They are a criminal industry that frequently puts the public at risk (for instance, adverse events to their properly prescribed drugs cause over 100,000 deaths EACH YEAR in the United States alone http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DevelopmentApprovalProcess/DevelopmentResources/DrugInteractionsLabeling/ucm110632.htm#ADRs: Prevalence and Incidence)
Policy makers that mandate vaccines and doctors that administer vaccines also have no liability in the event that the products they mandate or administer cause injury. These are policy makers that have clear conflicts of interest (particularly here in California http://www.electiontrack.com/lookup.html?committee=1353471, but also in the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices https://books.google.com/books?id=W_qKbgQ5XbwC&pg=PA98&lpg=PA98&dq=acip+conflict+of+interest&source=bl&ots=R-vHxCbHe0&sig=3Cm1GcxKVmJYFqguaAjfTAo8L_8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=o7Y5VZv7I8ivogTLl4HICg&ved=0CB0Q6AEwATgU#v=onepage&q=acip%20conflict%20of%20interest&f=false ) and doctors that, in the U.S. alone, cause hundreds of thousands of deaths EACH YEAR http://journals.lww.com/journalpatientsafety/fulltext/2013/09000/a_new,_evidence_based_estimate_of_patient_harms.2.aspx.
So, talking points aside, parents are being forced to trust corrupt politicians/policy makers,
criminal corporations, and the 3rd or 4th leading cause of death in the U.S. (doctors) to forcibly inject disease matter, animal matter derived from the torture of animals (all vaccines necessarily involve animal exploitation and torture), and heavy metals and preservatives into our children’s’ bodies, when none of those parties are liable in the inevitable event that their risk-laden products and decisions to mandate them cause injury or even death.
I’m always disappointed when progressive folks can’t see past the industry spin and corporate media talking points to see that this is clearly unjust. Our basic rights as parents and our bodily autonomy are being directly threatened and some flimsy utilitarian “greater good” logic is used, and often repeated, to justify it, especially by those “on the left” with a usual skepticism of government corruption and overreach as well as profit-driven corporate criminality. To be clear, I’m not directing this statement at you, but more generally at Democrats, liberals, leftists, and those that wouldn’t usually accept something so profoundly critical to basic rights/bodily autonomy so uncritically.
Now, I’m off to the Capitol to resist the fast tracking of this obvious special interest legislation (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-28/merck-measles-vaccine-sales-surged-as-california-outbreak-grew) to protect my kids and parent rights to exercise voluntary informed consent.
All the best.
Well said post, (and my first comment on your blog). I’ve been reading your blog the past few months and your posts always get me thinking. They have also prompted some fun discussions.
Thank you so much, Heidi. That means the world to me. 🙂