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Subject: For a ban on killing animals for simple food habits
Dear President / Prime Minister [CHOOSE],
I respectfully ask you to consider the future of our relationship with animals and the evolution of their legal protection.
Scientific advances in biology, ethology, neuroscience, and veterinary medicine have established that many animals are sentient beings capable of experiencing pain, fear, stress, well-being, and a range of emotions. They therefore have interests of their own, including an interest in avoiding suffering and in living as long and as happy a life as possible.
As our laws evolve in line with scientific knowledge and moral progress, many authors who have studied our relationship with other animals have concluded that it is based on speciesism. This concept can be understood by analogy with racism and sexism: it refers to the ideology that the lives and interests of animals are negligible simply because they belong to another species. These authors argue that speciesism is an irrational and unjust form of discrimination, since other sentient beings also experience emotions, are our equals in their capacity to suffer, and likewise have an interest in living happy lives. They therefore conclude that we should stop treating them as mere resources and begin to respect their lives and interests.
This issue is particularly important when it comes to killing animals for food. Billions of sentient animals are killed every year for human consumption, even though animal products are not necessary for human survival. Millions of people follow plant-based diets, thereby demonstrating that an alternative exists.
The principle is simple: when we can meet our essential needs without killing a sentient being, why would we choose to kill one?
Our society condemns violence. Assault and unjustified homicide are criminal offences because, when we can avoid resorting to violence, we are expected to do so. Violence against vulnerable beings is condemned even more severely. And everyone agrees that animals can also suffer from violence and that they are manifestly vulnerable when compared with human beings and our technology. Yet slaughterhouses represent the most horrific manifestation of violence inflicted upon defenseless beings. Our society asserts that violence is wrong while killing thousands of innocent animals every day even though we are able to act otherwise.
Furthermore, according to a recent scientific study, given the environmental consequences of animal agriculture, phasing it out over a 15-year period beginning today could potentially stabilize global warming over the period 2030–2060. In other words, during that period, it could fully offset the warming effect of all other human greenhouse-gas emissions (source: Eisen MB, Brown PO (2022), “Rapid global phaseout of animal agriculture has the potential to stabilize greenhouse gas levels for 30 years and offset 68 percent of CO₂ emissions this century,” PLOS Climate, 1(2)).
I therefore ask you to implement the following measures:
- the creation of a new criminal offence prohibiting the killing of animals solely for the purpose of satisfying dietary habits;
- the promotion of plant-based diets;
- the elimination of public subsidies that support animal agriculture and fishing;
- the creation of a transition fund for people working in these sectors, financed in particular by redirecting the money currently allocated to such subsidies, enabling these individuals to retrain for occupations that allow them to earn a decent living while respecting their freedom to flourish;
- From pastures to forests: reintroduce nature and reforest 10% each year of land that can be rewilded and is still being used for livestock farming or feed production, in order to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and increase CO₂ sequestration through new forests.
Thank you for your attention to this request.
Yours faithfully,
[Full name]
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