More than a third of US children do not live with both of their biological parents. If we are okay with separating human children from their parents, why should we treat cows better?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

What an absolutely bizarre whataboutism, so vapid and self-evidently disingenuous that I can't believe I'm about to waste my time picking it apart, but here we go:

First of all, rescuing children from traumatically abusive environments is not the same as what the meat industry does to calves. Separation from parents is inherently traumatic itself, but that needs to be weighed against the degree of harm that the abusive parent might do, on a case-by-case basis.

Secondly, there are certainly cases of the government separating children from their parents that should be protested. Like when Texas defines transgender-affirming households to be committing child abuse and uses that as a reason to forcibly separate the child. Or when immigration control separates migrant children from their parents.

This might come as a shock to you, but it's possible to care about and advocate for more than one issue at a time. I don't know if your emotional capacity might be limited to just caring about one thing, but most people don't suffer from that limitation.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 months ago (2 children)

What a braindead argument. Sometimes bad things happen to human children so we can excuse animal cruelty on an industrial scale.

And it's not just the separation, 99% of male calves are killed immediately after being born, while females are either filled with hormones so they can be grown for meat, or they are raped year after year so they keep producing milk.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

For some sources to back that up

Some of their claims are beyond dispute: Dairy cows are repeatedly impregnated by artificial insemination and have their newborns taken away at birth. Female calves are confined to individual pens and have their horn buds destroyed when they are about eight weeks old. The males are not so lucky. Soon after birth, they are trucked off to veal farms or cattle ranches where they end up as hamburger meat.

The typical dairy cow in the United States will spend its entire life inside a concrete-floored enclosure, and although they can live 20 years, most are sent to slaughter after four or five years when their milk production wanes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/29/science/dairy-farming-cows-milk.html

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

99% of male calves are killed immediately after being born

that's not true.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 months ago

Not living with biological parents is different than being seperated, living alone in small veal cages, and ultimately being killed as a child for veal as happens for male calves

We also do not intentionally seperate all child from their parents regardless of circumstances. Maybe a tiny amount from child protective services for abusive parents, but it's not like the dairy industry is doing so because of abusive cow parents