On animals and food - Part 2

Since I was a child I always found it intriguing how human beings are just animals like the are thousands of other species, but there’s just some things about us that sets us apart. And you know what I focused on as kid on how humans differ from other creatures? Food.

As animals, we can’t photosynthesise so we consume other eukaryotic matter to obtain our nutrients. Every animal, even fungus, does it. Some animals eat grass and vegetation, some eat other animals, some eat both animals and vegetation and anything else they can extract nutrients from. We are, however, perhaps the only species that has self-determination regarding the foods we eat. A person may choose to eat only plant matter to the exclusion of everything else, for example, or plant and animal matter, or even only animal matter, or any other variation in between. As a species we are regarded as omnivores but as individuals we may choose to have diets that are vegan, vegetarian, pescerian, etc.  And what further sets us apart as a species is how we can then interrelate our choice of foods and the act of eating with spirituality.

Not everyone, but a large number of people, have formed a relationship between food and spirituality, ethics, morality, and all these words that are of relevance only to humans. Personally, as part of my religious belief-system, I have few limitations on what I can or should eat. Those I don’t eat are those that if I ate would kill me, those that I find unappetising, and those my religious-belief system prohibits. My particular belief system does not prohibit me from eating animals and has only basic clauses on to how an animal has to be prepared for human consumption. In addition to that, I do also have personal beliefs on the ‘humane’ treatment of animals for science, food, and other industries. They are personal views and unrelated to my religious beliefs.

From an early age I was taught to say a prayer before meals. As a kid I dismissed this together with a lot of “social norms” that served no real purpose but looked ‘nice’ to others. I later found out that some religious belief systems have gone further and have made food preparation and consumption a religious rite in itself. I found this fascinating! Eating was not considered just meeting a basic human need like breathing or obtaining nutrients, but instead an act of religious worship. Some religions, for example, will deem a product only suitable for consumption without violating religious law if it has been prepared a certain way (think, for example, halal and kosher foods). Later when I decided to embrace a religious system of thought and incorporated prayer into my life, I understood the desire to turn every human act a direct act of worship to God.

I found the idea of making food preparation an act of worship very fascinating, but ironically I also found it a little distancing from its purpose. The thing is often adherents to religions that follow religious customs on food preparation also aren’t the same ones that say prayer prior to their meals. What does that matter, right? Well, if you don’t believe in practicing this it makes no difference who (if anyone) says the prayer or who enacts the act of worship; it can be whomever, or it can be no-one. It mattered to me because I, like many other people, who had come to interrelate food with spirituality felt it was in fact delegating my personal worship to God to someone else. I finally understood what my mum was getting at: the prayer was meant to acknowledge my gratitude to God for providing (or not denying me) that which so many other human beings lack. It was a way also to acknowledge that another living creature was being sacrificed for my benefit and its life did not leave in vain or unappreciated. That I do consider my personal duty: that if I care about something, then I must personally support it.

There are two stories Paulo Coelho tells that I find very thought-provoking. The first is about a monk or some other spiritual leader talking to his pupil. The pupil wants to know what food he can eat so as to bring him closer to God, as he is already doing everything else that in his religious system is required to gain God’s approval. His teacher tells him to eat of some grass. The student goes enthusiastically to pick it – then he realises it is a poisonous grass! He is shocked that the teacher has indicated this deadly shrub to him and asks if he realises that if he eats it he will die. The teacher says to him ‘I know of no other way through which eating something will bring you closer to God’. The second story is about a similar man who accuses someone else of being lacking spiritually because he eats a certain food. The man considers that this food is unholy, that it tarnishes the soul, that it is an offense to God to eat it. The teacher then reprimands the student for blaspheming God, for calling one of God’s creations unholy, for assuming that God is so petty as to be offended by what a person eats or doesn’t eat. He reminds him that it is not unholy what enters the mouth, but what from it emerges.

On animals and food - Part 1

Some people say we are superior to other creatures because we are “intelligent”. The truth is this intelligence is only of value to us as humans because we possess it and we know how to use it. An elephant could equally believe he is the superior species on this planet because he has a trunk – and all the great things he can do with it! He considers every other trunkless species as inferior, lacking, because we don’t share that one thing that to him his survival is dependent on. Our “intelligence” and interaction style is dependent on the arrangement of our nervous tissue, our phenotypic appearance is genetically-determined, and our behaviour is in the broadest sense survival-driven. Now, we (all animate creates) are carbon-based constructs of eukaryotic cells incapable of photosynthesising to meet our own nutritional needs. We are amazingly adaptable and very different to other species in the way we interact with our environment, but even if we were the superior species, it does not entitle us to haphazardly proceed to abuse our environment and the creatures in it to meet our own needs.

We are truly an amazingly adaptable species. Human beings have developed ways to overcome our deficiency in obtaining and forming our own nutritional needs for survival by consuming other eukaryotic matter. We have even developed systems to make this more efficient and safe for our digestive systems. We, for example, cook our food. Simple biology classes have taught us that cooking our foods, especially those derived from other animals, has effects on the quality of food itself so as to make it suitable for the human digestive tract. Heating denatures protein, makes food stuffs generally easier to transit along the gastrointestinal tract, destroys pathogenic microbes, changes the taste of most foods, and all these other things that are limiting (and thus important) factors to our ability to live off these products. We are also incredibly adaptable on the choice of foods we can live on.

I have always had an omnivorous diet except for a few years where I was a vegetarian purely as a teenage fad. It was interesting in those few years, though, what you do learn about human beings and our need to stereotype others. I openly admit I chose to have a vegetarian diet purely as a choice, not based on my views on animals or religion or anything really.  In fact you could probably say it was almost on a whim similar to any teenager who has ever dyed their hair an “odd” colour or done anything considered outside the norm just because they could. Adolescence is a time of experimentation and trying on different identities until you find one you stick to a little more permanently. My phase was vegetarianism. What I learnt was that people do have a particular relationship to food that is not like that related to fashion or hair dyes or music preferences. People generally relate food to something more akin to spirituality. Now, of course, my choice on diet was on a whim, but it is true that a great majority of people do make their dietary choices based on these things.

I grew up with what you’ll often hear me refer to as “edible pets”. This was what I was exposed to growing up. We had pets in the form of ducks, chickens, rabbits. We raised them and fed them from young and considered them as anyone else does a pet. When they got to a particular size, my mother or grandmother (or sometimes my siblings) would kill them and prepare them as food for all of us. This we all understood as the circle of life. We cared for those animals and treated them without cruelty; in fact we would play with them and be fond of them as our pets. We did not shed tears for them when their time came, though. We had known all along what the fate of these animals were to be – and yet we did not hold back from caring them as we did. To us it seemed similar to the way people love each other, siblings, parents, children, spouses, friends, etc, and don’t hold back even though we know these people will one day sooner or later leave our lives.

Growing up, our family had at one point also a dog or two as a pet that we did not consider “edible” in our culture. We kept this animal purely for company.  And we considered it okay to keep him because we could sustain him without going out of our needs to meet his (he ate scraps, inedible leftovers, and whatever he could fend for himself). Why I mention this is because still to this day I have moments where I consider it unethical to go out of our way to provide for ‘non-edible’ animals when there are starving families in the world, when money could be diverted to help other fellow humans in need… I have those days, but I have also learnt to be a little more open-minded and understand that, particularly in western-culture, people do often equate dogs and cats and whatever other pets, to family and even to being equal to human beings. A view I understand even if I still cannot say I share it.

On abortion

The rape of the Sabine women, Giambologna

Recently someone asked me to express my views on ‘abortion’, specifically as it relates to my role at work, my personal religious views, and my experience with medical ethics. I found it an interesting little exercise because it made me think about the different roles we play in different social spheres and also the cognitive schemas which we keep constant across these spheres. For example, the religious group to which I belong and whose view I share (or at the very least accept) has a view on abortions that is easily summarised as “it is never indicated”. Now, in my role as a doctor I am at times confronted by people enquiring about termination of pregnancy services. In this scenario you could say that I am paid to educate, to assist, and to aim for the best health outcome for my patient. But I am the same human being doing both roles of Christian and doctor. The other thing to realise is that I represent only myself, not my religion or my profession – and yet to another fellow human, I am both!

I have summarised perfectly my religion’s views on abortion as “it’s never indicated”. Before I summarise my profession’s view on abortion, I must summarise my profession’s role. Doctors have sets of clinical standards and legal standards by which we must exercise our jobs. It is not just about using the best clinical method or doing things legally, it is about using the best clinical method to do legal things that are in the patient’s best interests – as dictated by the patient himself (or a substitute decision maker on his behalf). So my profession’s view of abortion you could say has to do with the performing of legal abortions in a clinically safe manner. Of course, this is given that it is requested by the patient, and is in keeping with the general direction to minimise harm to her or to improve her wellbeing. You could very generally summarise my profession’s views on abortion as “it is indicated when the patient wants it, it is the best thing for her mental and/or physical health, and it is able to be performed in a clinically safe manner”. Now, does everyone in my religion believe exactly the same thing? No! Does everyone in my profession believe the same things as each other? No, of course not. Some of us differ even in antibiotic prescribing!

Personally, I believe whether or not a thing is bad has to be decided by the person to whom the decision directly affects. For example, if my religious belief is that eating a certain food is a sin, then it IS a sin if I personally ate that food. However, if someone else doesn’t believe it is a sin and eats this particular food, then to me that person is not guilty of a sin either in his own view or mine, and I can hold no negative judgement towards that person. The question of MY view on ‘abortion: good or bad?’ for me is redundant. To me what is of relevance is what I do in one or another context. I am both a Christian and a paid medical professional, but I am above all things, a human being. Every human being approaches life with the same basic aim: to do the thing that is best for me and minimize my discomfort (physical and/or mental). No one likes to feel guilty of not doing their job adequately, and no one likes to feel that special type of guilt our religious beliefs can make us feel. Things get even more complicated when you throw in having to act in situations that will directly (and indirectly) affect at least one other human being.

I have reached a position in my life where I don’t want to change anyone’s view to that of my religion, or to change the views of my religious associates to that of my own. I have also been lucky enough to realize that my work is just that: work. So what has all this stuff on religion have to do with my discussion here on abortion? Medically, in my job, it is never my choice to decide on a patient’s medical care if he is competent to make that choice himself, regardless of their or my personal religious or personal views. My job would be to inform accurately and with scientific fact, to ensure that the person has access to adequate psychosocial support, and to aim to protect the patient from mental and psychological harm. None of these tasks have anything at all to do with my own personal religious views on anything.

You can’t discuss abortion, though, without discussing legality. I was asked whether I believed that termination of pregnancy services should be deemed “illegal”. I believe that the main reason that the concept of legality is still introduced into discussions about intentional abortions is that it is contended on some many levels that have little at all to do with either medicine or the law. The way our society deals with such “ethical” or “moral” dilemmas is to pass strict laws or rules to dictate what should be done and where and by whom. For example, a statement could be made that an unborn person has the same human and legal rights to a person who is already born. However as a society a statement like that is not very practical because there are too many things to consider, e.g. at what age or weight is a foetus a ‘person’, what anatomical or biological parts entitle a person to be called a person, etc. So we come up with laws and rules instead, saying for example that a foetus after 24 weeks of gestational age is a person and has this and that other human right but not these other ones yet, etc. This is, you’ll notice, similar in concept to Christian ideology that says “it is never indicated’.

Personally, I believe that health professionals should not be criminally prosecuted for performing abortions that are performed safely and using standard practices when a person has consented to the procedure after being adequately counselled about it. I believe it should also be legal for patients who are intellectually competent to make health care decisions to seek adequate help from health professionals for discussion and possible subsequent performing of an abortion. I also believe that it should remain illegal to perform abortions that are not medically supervised or on people who are not capable of consenting or refusing to the procedure (unless in conjunction with a substitute decision-maker that has the person’s best interests at the forefront). I am glad that termination of pregnancy techniques have been developed in a medical context. For example, it’s better that a doctor with appropriate tools and knowledge perform an abortion than a woman attempt to have one done by someone with no specialized training. To believe that outlawing something which has such a long history of occurring is going to stop it from being done, I think is quite naive.

I do have one problem with our society’s current high rate of abortion, though, and it has nothing (or everything?) to do with either religion or law or ethics. I find it concerning that the high use rate of termination of pregnancy services, and its widespread acceptance, has led to the trivialization of what is essentially (and I think, rightly so) a big decision to be made in a person’s life. It saddens me that some people are coming to think of an abortion as an option for contraception or that it is a common/simple thing like getting a mole removed from the skin. The true and often undiscussed fact is that a lot of women do not understand the psychological impact of their decisions, and the potential for negative psychological sequelae in the years to come. Ideally, no woman should opt for an abortion without having full explanation of the medical or surgical techniques and the potential risks associated. The discussion should include explanations of the changes to be expected in her body, an understanding of the foetus’ current stage of development, an exploration of her own spiritual views, and consideration of her mental and physical health. Now, I am not saying ‘don’t have an abortion because you’ll get depression or other mental problems in the future’. I am simply saying that a patient needs to be given adequate and complete information to help them form their own decisions.

On an environmentalist

A monkey masturbating!

There is one man I credit with helping me lose the respect I once had for environmentalists. I won’t say his name, but he was a lecturer I once had for a bioethics class at university. Now, this man’s great passion was protecting animal rights, especially as they related to scientific research. He spoke of it all so passionately and realistically. He enjoyed the work of philosopher Peter Singer and he was also a vegetarian. Why do I mention that? Because it means he was a knowledgeable and “true to his cause” environmentalist. Anyhow, it was well understood knowledge that he was a very well accomplished ethicist and so he had the attention of all of us students. And then he let me down.

He, like many scientists and philosophers, admitted he was an atheist. Is that wrong? No; a person believes what they choose to believe and as long as it’s not coerced or misinformed, then there is nothing wrong with what they choose to believe. I in fact believe that there are few true atheists, but I’ll discuss that at a later stage. To this man, a “good” man I was lead to believe at that stage (he was an ethicist and an environmentalist, to say the least), the protection of nature, earth, and living creatures on, above, or beneath it was very very important. Wow, there’s a good human being! However, as the lecture moved on, he for some reason I can no longer recall, moved on to the subject of discussing religion. Ok, so he had already made it well known that he didn’t believe in “God” or that religion wasn’t of his preference. But he started to discuss a neighbour of his, a man he didn’t like: a man who was a Jehovah’s Witness in Christian belief.

So let me frame this for you so you understand why I found what he said so offensive and despicable. Firstly, he comes in with a reputation that he knows inspires respect and influence. Secondly, his reputation is that of a “good” man: one who cares about and defends defenceless animals and the natural environment. Thirdly, he is put in a position to educate very keen and suggestible young adults. It would be a great and excellent platform to incite some passion or at least enthusiasm for a good cause. He could have chosen to inspire us to defend the environment, to protest, to petition higher authorities for change and justice, to be kind to animals, to support the defenceless, to acknowledge the inherent power of a human being who is passionate in his pursuit of a definitive goal, etc.

What did he do instead? He told a story of his neighbour who is a Jehovah’s Witness. Now, the neighbour was a “bad” neighbour because he insisted on greeting him pleasantly over the fence between their properties, was always so jolly, and always wanted to make friendly conversation about anything at all. You know, the kind of guy like Ned Flanders from ‘The Simpsons’ who irritates because of his good nature. Similarly, this Jehovah’s Witness was a ‘bad’ man, he had us believe, for doing just that. So then this guy, this great ethicist, disclosed a fantasy of his: he said he would love to collect a whole bunch of leeches and set them free onto his neighbour until the leeches had sucked away all his blood, and given that he was a Jehovah’s Witness, watch him then die as he refused a blood transfusion. He laughed after telling this story. He laughed and then after a short awkward silence, the whole auditorium laughed with him. And then he continued the lecture on how a good person must ensure to promote the wellbeing of the environment and animals.

I was not at that stage a fully convinced Christian so I wasn’t offended for that reason, but I found his behaviour to be almost an abuse of power. Sure, in the right context it could have been considered a funny joke, but what was disturbing is that he was in a position of teaching, and we all learn best by example whether we believe it or not. Knowing he was an influential man in front of an impressionable crowd, he chose to spread disdain and hatred instead of promoting a humanitarian cause, or even just doing what he was being paid to do and teach us about the ethical use/care of animals in science. And what further aggravated me was the hypocrisy of claiming to be for the very humanitarian causes of protecting the environment and non-human species, and at the same time being capable of such great non-humanitarian discrimination, if not hatred, of a group of people. I say a group of people because he never said his neighbour’s name, he referred to him as “a Jehovah’sWitness”. I lost all respect for that man that day. I still consider it a shame that he is allowed such an awarded role in the university and still exposing impressionable students to his dichotomous, and somewhat concerning, views of the world and the creatures on it.

How is it possible that a person be able to love animals, to want to preserve and protect them from harm, and yet be so careless about the dominant animal species: humanity? If I wanted to keep a mouse alive, wouldn’t I consider it an equally respectable aim to keep a human being alive? If I considered it wrong to cruelly beat an animal, then why would I support or even promote the discrimination and abuse of a group of people? A lot of people who are passionate about the environment tell me their passion is because these animals, these trees and lakes and oceans, can’t protect themselves. And not only that, they do no harm to anyone. A human being, on the other hand, can not only defend himself but also launch an offence / attack towards other humans, towards animals, and towards even the very environment that keeps us alive. Yes, human beings are capable of evil, no doubt, but to admit that a person can be imperfect and to say he warrants death is a massive leap. 

^^^ Hilarious tattoo! - why you should think twice aboout what you put out there :P ^^^