Spirit in Action
Sanctity of Life - Vasu Murti - Part 2
Vasu Murti asks a disturbing question - if world hunger, climate change, and, importantly, abortion are the karma for our animal-based diet, can we get liberals and conservatives to come together to affirm the sanctity of all life? Vasu Murti is author of The Shall Not Hurt or Destroy: Animal Rights and Vegetarianism in the Western Religious Traditions and also The Liberal Case Against Abortion.
- Broadcast on:
- 29 Jan 2012
- Audio Format:
- other
[music] Let us sing this song for the healing of the world That we may hear as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world alone And our lives will feel the echo of our healing [music] Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeet. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives Of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, Creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them In their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you To sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. [music] Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world That we may dream as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world alone Today for Spirit in Action, we're back with Vasu Murti, author of "They Shall Not Hurt or Destroy" Animal rights and vegetarianism in the Western religious traditions And also, the liberal case against abortion. Last time, the bulk of our discussion was about vegetarianism And the secular and religious support for it, including the Hindu concept of karma. This week, we'll still be talking about animal rights in respect But we'll be focusing on abortion and the relationship between the two issues I'd like to get us started off with a good respect for all life mood And there can hardly be a better way than by sharing a song From one of my very favorite performers, "Carry Newcomer" So, we'll continue our visit with Vasu Murti, where we left off last time After listening to "Carry Newcomer Song, Do No Harm" [Music] John Roth had a heart like flame He believed all souls were love the same He packed up his hopes and his family And moved to Ohio There in the deep dark wilderness Where the newborn son is soon was blessed Raising up in the ways of the old prophets Named him Isaiah Roth Do no harm, shed no blood The only love here is love We can call the kingdom down here on earth Beat your swords in the clouds Don't be afraid, I'll show you how Lift your eyes to the skies All is holy here The forest people are sinking near His message to the red children clean We can build the peaceable kingdom here In the shadow of these dreams They planted oats and beans and maize They planted their hearts in the dirt of that place And they learned to speak about hope and grace Him a language of John Roth Do no harm, shed no blood The only love here is love We can call the kingdom down here on earth Beat your swords in the clouds Don't be afraid, I'll show you how Lift your eyes to the skies All is holy here When Isaiah Roth had just turned ten He was working up in the loft again He looked out, he saw eight white men Come riding up that day The men called out from the deepening lane Saying, "You'll come out and we can trade" The forest people walked out on a parade With smiles and open heads The white traders lifted up their guns And shut them down, each and every one And they're eating that John Roth begun They're bleeding on the ground Do no harm, shed no blood The only love here is love We can call the kingdom down here on earth Beat your swords in the clouds Don't be afraid, I'll show you how Lift your eyes to the skies All is holy here Now the world is aged by the dears The Quakers came and settled near Oh, Isaiah Roth still preaches here That the greatest law is love Now some people say it's all a scam Just the ravings of some old man But Isaiah Roth says he's still king Said he'd end on the hill Do no harm, shed no blood The only love here is love So there's no way you can prove that it's absolutely required by scripture Even if you say that, that doesn't take us very far Because we see churches taking positions on a number of issues That aren't clearly spelled out in scripture either Exodus 21 says the fetus is not a person If two men are fighting and a pregnant woman is injured And the fetus is killed They have to recompensate upon the damage And put it upon her, not the fetus And if the woman is killed, it's punishable by murder Apologies say, well, the fetus is given some concern Even if there's no personhood But then the New Testament, Paul claims mosaic While it's garbage and it's abolished So whatever concerned might have been given to the unborn is gone And some Christians say they don't even have to follow Paul Which doesn't make any sense On the one hand in Corinthians chapter 1 Corinthians chapter 6 Paul was warning drunkard thieves Homosexuals, idolaters, fornicators Will not inherit the kingdom of God And the other thing is saying, oh, three times, you can do whatever you want Okay, well, then why are you giving all the moral instructions to begin with? It doesn't make any sense And the Christian understanding is that Paul had a thorn in his side And after reason, Jesus, what to do about it? And Jesus said, my grace is sufficient for the It was a response to a specific problem Not a license to do is one pleases And the late Janet Regina Hyland, who was raised Catholic But went on to become an evangelical minister in the vegan And offered him God's covenant of animals She said they're quoting Paul out of context Because Paul, in Corinthian, says elsewhere He said, you know, keep my body under subjection Unless I become a castaway And not practice what I have preached So it's like, I agree, there's no way you can make an absolute airtight case Regina Hyland said that herself She said, there's no way you can make an absolute airtight case We have to argue in terms of religion's highest ideals And social progress Of course, progressives see things that way With conservatives, it's a lot harder to prove that You know, if this was the 18th century And you were trying to convince people to abolish slavery That's not spelled out in script, either So a conservative Christian might say, well, we don't have to free our slaves, that's work You're asking us to do activity that is required of our faith So we're 100 years ago, we don't have to give women stuff For each equality, that's work You're asking us to engage in activity or effort Or whatever that isn't a part of our faith 50 years ago, why aren't the Christians supporting civil rights? Would they be saying, well, that's work, you know, kind of smugly and glibly I don't know There are compelling arguments, but it's the progressives who are responding in this direction We see that, at least that's in my experience The Christians who are responding favorably To the message of animal rights and vegetarianism You know, making bread available to feed the hungry grain for the hungry, et cetera Are the liberals, the liberal denominations Vegetarian interpretation of scripture is possible But it's the kind of interpretation that appeals to progressives Like an anti-capital punishment interpretation of scripture It would be great to have the conservatives on board with us You'd think they would understand, just like they would see abortion as a crime And that doesn't spell that clearly in script, right? You'd think they would understand, like, oh, animals have the right to life Just as we oppose stem cell research The animal rights people are opposed to experimenting upon animals Beyond that, there is collective karma If, you know, we're killing animals by the billions, it comes back to us This was documented by John Robbins in Diet for New America John Robbins is influenced by Eastern philosophy, Hinduism and Buddhism And towards the end of the final chapter In his Pulitzer Prize-nominated book, Diet for New America He begins with a quote by reincarnationist Christian mystic Edgar Cayce Who makes a comment about karma And then John Robbins proceeds to document the collective karma That we're incurring by killing animals by the billions In terms of the ecological crises we're facing As one example I've given before If you were a green party activist And you were saying, like, you know, well, we should treat animals justly and humanely But first, let's address the water crisis That's more pressing Then the animals will come next And I would point out, well, according to statistics Not just from John Robbins Diet for New America But more recently, in their 2007 book Please only the animals, the mother and daughter writing team of Jennifer Horseman and Jamie Flowers Point out that the waste of water and other resources that go into a meat-centered diet If we weren't killing animals, there wouldn't be a water crisis So, it might be hard to convince people that abortion and war Are the collective karma for killing animals But I'm bold enough to assert if we weren't killing animals These problems wouldn't exist So they have to be addressed first, you can't say Well, first, let's address the abortion crisis and then animals will come next That's a pretty bold statement Let's talk a little bit about abortion here What I'd like to start first Is the liberal critique, as you see it Of the pro-life movement About their inconsistency And then we'll go on to the reverse critique During the '80s, people were always asking questions About the Long These Lines on Usement One woman who, ironically, called herself Carrie She was asking, "You're pro-wifers claim to be pro-life Why are they supporting war, capital punishment, et cetera, et cetera?" John Morrill responded, "Well, here's a more of a liberal Christian" He said that it was his opposition to capital punishment That led him to oppose abortion He said he supported all what he called "blocking methods of contraception" Maria Krasinski, in 1999 It's a Catholic lesbian on Democrats for Life Told me via personal email correspondence The correct term is barrier methods But anyway, John Morrill said "In the Bible I read, condemning others is a good way to condemn yourself" You know, judge not listed, be judge, et cetera John Morrill compared discrimination against unborn to homophobia and xenophobia He said that he believed healthcare in the U.S. should be federalized I.E. socialized like it is in the U.K. He said he supported sex education as well But he disagreed with how it was taught He said that the phrase "safe sex" Because it's impossible to engage in sexual activity without risking pregnancy He said he referred the term "safe for sex" Because, you know, when you engage in sexual activity, you're risking pregnancy He gave an analogy once, he said "You can engage in sexual activity" The quickest way to avoid pregnancy is not, no, the easiest way to avoid pregnancy is not to But if you engage in sexual activity, you're running a risk of pregnancy And you're responsible for any children you conceive And he said just as you can drive You know, the safest way to avoid an accident is to not drive But if you drive, you're responsible for any pedestrians you get Because pedestrians have the right of way He said similarly, I say that the fetus has the right of way He said it's ridiculous to say "I have a right to engage in sexual activity and not risk pregnancy" Because that's the sound of the stupidest thing "I have a right to drive my car into a brick wall and not expect to get hurt" You know, you can't engage in sexual activity without risking pregnancy He was like, "I don't even have a problem with that statement" But then he said, "With taking what's the further thing, should I be injured when I drive my car into a brick wall?" You know, "I have the right to kill others to heal myself like for skin grafts" Or whatever, etc. "Should I become pregnant because of my carolist activity?" "I have the right to kill someone" And Gary Sandelson, who was a conservative on using it, commented that "abortion is just getting someone out of the way who's cramping your style" And the argument is that recognizing the rights of another class of beings limits our freedoms and our choices And it requires a change in our personal lifestyle You no longer have the choice of being able to own slaves or commit domestic violence, etc. If animals have rights, you can't commit violence against them either Your freedoms are a choice to restrict it So the question is, "Do the potato have rights?" Pro-lifers focus entirely on the unborn to the exclusion of everything else And that is how a lot of liberals see it Is that they ignore other social justice issues who they often ask, "Well, what about capital punishment? What about war?" And now that animal rights are becoming a mainstream political issue And it's only fair that pro-life conservatives be asking, "What about animals?" And how do you justify an extravagant lifestyle that's taking from the poor to feed the rich, such that it can hardly be called pro-life in a literal sense of the word If we run out of water, we die You know, water irrigation makes it possible for cities to bloom in the desert California is the desert, you know, what to speak of Cairo or Tel Aviv or some of the other places, you know? So these are all interconnected in some way And pro-life received me focused on the unborn to the exclusion of everything else That was my friend Aaron Common and back in the 80s He was saying, "They call themselves pro-life, but what's their position on capital punishment?" Then I said, "What's your philosophy? A murderer has a right to life, but an unborn child doesn't?" And Aaron kind of shifted and completely said, "Well, when does life begin?" And it's like, "Well, fertilization, that's a scientific fact." And Dr. Wilkie, formerly of National Right to Life says, pro-lifers should use a scientific term of fertilization rather than conception, which sounds kind of religious and emotional. So these questions come all the time. And Aaron Common is, "Well, this is about a concern." He said, "Oh, Republicans are great for the unborn, before they're born, but once they're born, they lose all interest in them and everything." That was the comment that Robert Casey, pro-life democratic governor of Pennsylvania, made about the pro-life republicans. He's the anti-abortion republicans care for the child only before birth and do nothing for them afterwards. They dropped them at birth. That was a comment that Barney Frank made as a democratic congressman. He said, "For republicans, life begins the conception and ends at birth." So it seems to me, social services care for the needy. This is the area where pro-life republicans are most vulnerable, because they just seem kind of callous and indifferent in this regard. It's not just a question of fighting wars out of self-defense. We've seen adventurism abroad, not just Vietnam, but Iraq. Now there's not a lot that's been killed. What's our purpose for being in Afghanistan? So these are valid questions. And you just want to adopt a moniker like pro-life. You have better well-being prepared to live up to it. Or maybe just say, "Well, we're really just anti-abortion." You know, we're not really against all these other things. A similar statement was made. I think it was actress Gretchen Wyler in the 1980s, video from the mid-80s, Healthy, Welcoming and Wise, which he was saying, "When people say they love animals, I say, "Please just say you love cats and dogs, because you cannot eat the object of your compassion." So similarly, if you're really pro-life, this is global all the time, but on the left, if you're really pro-life, then why don't we see it manifest with things that you do? It's perfectly reasonable for progressives and whole anti-abortionists accountable in this regard. How do you justify a lifestyle that goes against what you believe? And if it can be shown, maybe it can't be shown directly, that there's a direct cause and effect relationship between the killing of animals and the killing of human beings through war and abortion. It'd be hard to document this in secular and political language, you know, food, economy, environment, war and so forth. But if you're engaging in a lifestyle that is directly thwarting the cause, you believe in, it should be questioned. You know, if you're a green party activist and you're saying, "Well, you know, we'll get to animals after we get to the water crisis." But by supporting the factory farms, you're contributing to the water crisis. You're sabotaging your cause because you're contributing to the water crisis rather than ending it, by supporting factory farming. How do you justify that? It's perfectly reasonable to ask pro-lifers. You know, if you can show a cause and effect relationship in this regard, how do you justify killing animals if it's thwarting your own causes of pro-life actors? That was what animal actors realized early on. I mean, literature from the '80s, they were saying, well, one person saying, "Well, I do enough for animals without having to be a vegetarian." And they're saying, "That's not likely as nearly 75 times the animals are killed for food that are killed in medical and laboratories 500 times the greater than the number killed in pounds, 30 times greater than the number killed by 100s and trappers." Similarly, like those on the left, it's first and first and foremost, "Well, why do you stop caring about the animal once they're born?" The conservatives might say, "Well, we don't think that, you know, a new government program is the way to solve these things." Well, we aren't seeing the private sector in much in this regard, nor individual charities. I got of individual charities to handle them on that kind of a level that would be required. So we can debate these things, but at least, first, we have to acknowledge that there's a clear crisis. Diagnosis is 90% of the cure. We want an animal suffering. First, we have to acknowledge that it's going to injustice. So similarly, the pro-life, to give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they do see these as serious issues, but they just feel that different strategies necessary. That's the conclusion I come to in the liberal case against abortion, is that both the right and the left, like the Vietnam analogy, toward the end of the 1960s, both the right and the left came to agree the war was wrong. They merely advocated different strategies for ending it. So you may not agree with me that facing to kill animals is the solution to ending the abortion crisis. I agree that it's a bold statement, and I'm not trying to sound brash or making it either, but we don't see you proposing any other strategies. All we see are the same solutions which haven't gotten us anywhere. In fact, the courts with conservatives who could easily strip us of our right to privacy, which were formed in previous decisions to Roe v. Wade, Griswald versus Connecticut, and others and so forth. And it hasn't gotten us anywhere, except for who's Sylvia, maybe Clarence Thomas. None of the justices have expressed interest in overturning Roe v. Wade. It seems to me that there's plenty of reasons for liberals not to take the anti-abortionist position seriously. The right-wing tends to articulate it as a religious view. We rarely do them articulated as a secular human rights issue. Some voices do. There are intelligent voices in the pro-life movement. You know, George Will, conservative columnist, once wrote a pro-life column in the '80s where you give the example of his handicapped son, others speak in terms of like the pro-choice mentality gives rise to eugenics mindset, you know, like the March of Dimes, you know, saying that every child should be wanted and if not wanted to kill is what the, you know, the pro-life critics say. And the March of Dimes is also under fire from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine because they endorse the experiments on animals. And so that's an area where pro-life and pro-life people define common ground. What to speak of, the fact that on an eugen diet, the world could support a population several times, it's present size. So that kind of does the way with the argument that they're of overpopulation, the threat of overpopulation as a need for abortion and birth control. But it's like the pro-life movement is inconsistent in a number of areas. They can't articulate the position as a religious belief rather than as a secular human rights issue. They can't do ignore other directly relevant secular human rights issues and what to speak of the addresses as world war and capital punishment and so forth. The only people I think addressing these things is the consistent ethnic movement. And I commend them for it. Well, but now that animal rights are becoming a mainstream political issue, it's reasonable to ask, what's your stand on animal cruelty? Especially if it's thwarting the things you believe in. Why do you obsess over the silent screams of the unborn, you know, which in that early stage of development, if there's no brain or central nervousness to measure, it might just be a reflex action. How do you obsess over the silent screams of the unborn while going to the very real screams of animals? How do you justify taking brain away from the hungry that could be used to feed clothes and shelter human beings and you call yourselves pro-life? So these are valid questions which ought to be asked. Why do species membership make the difference on how we treat a being? Chimpanzees share 98 to 99 percent of our DNA. So, you know, you're a silent or you condone the experimenting on chimpanzees while protecting metal handicapped children. These are children like the metal handicapped. They're never going to have the potential to exhibit the kind of rational thought that most humans exhibit upon full development. Why are we protecting them? Just because they're a member of our species. Previously, our small community of wood is defined by our race or our tribe, our nation, et cetera. Why should they end with species membership? Native Americans were once killed for sport. So that means membership in a human species was never the criterion for personhood. Blacks were once considered three-fifths of a person or whatever. So similarly, why should a personhood be confined to a human species? You know, these are the kind of questions that should be asked to pro-wifers. And the pro-wifers in the left, they respond when you point these things out. Cal Crossed of Democrats for Life. When I contacted her in 1995, sending her one on a manuscript, she responded favorably and soaking over the phone, said she was with the anti-hunter who bred for the world. They've advocated, like, abstaining from meeting on certain days of the week to make grain available for the hungry and so forth. She said she was a vegetarian out of concern for global hunger, which is a genuine social justice issue and a valid concern. It's not narcissistic, like, wanting to lose weight or whatever, et cetera. You know, that is a genuine social justice issue. The late Regina Hyland is in the Evangelical Minister of Vegan, acknowledged it as such. I think it was Peter. I received an email from an animal rights group with an interview with Reverend Al Sharpton where he explained the inspirations which caused him to go vegetarian and everything. And he was citing Coretta Scott King as an example. And so on the left, they were responding favorably to these things. And that was what I said earlier with that. Of vegetarian interpretation of scripture, it's kind of like an anti-capital punishment interpretation of scripture. It'll appeal to the progressives and everything. And we see that. The ones who are responding faithfully are the progressives. So it is reasonable. The critique of many on the left is that the anti-abortion side on the right phrases abortion or a religious issue, rather than a secular human rights issue, applicable to everyone. That is the second part of my question. And so the critique from the left towards the right is they're inconsistent. Is the reciprocal critique equally valid? That liberals are inconsistent. They say it's important to not do capital punishment on this horrible murderer. They say it's important not to kill someone in war. But then when it comes to a human fetus, a unborn child, they say that's none of our business. That is the valid critique. That is the level that those in the left. Rosemary Botcher, past president of feminist life, in writing a Tallahassee Democrat, said as much. She said, "The same people who lacked hysterical as a thought of executing after countless appeals, a criminal convicted of some revolting crime would have insisted upon his mother's right to have him killed unconditionally while he was still innocent. The same people who organized the boycott of an earthly company for its marketing of infant form, the underdeveloped nations, would have approved the killing of those exploited infants just a few months before. The same people who talked incessantly of human rights are willing to deny the most helpless and vulnerable human beings the most important right of all." I agree. It is inconsistent. But I've seen the opposite, actually. On the left, at least in the '80s on Newsnet, the liberals were willing to concede. You know, we might be unjustly stepping on someone here. We rarely see conservatives acknowledge that, you know, when it comes to animal rights, we're deliberately violating the rights of animals on a daily basis without thinking about it, or we claim it's a erosion permit that which doesn't go anywhere. Some religious permit abortions. Pro-lifers are quick to defend themselves on religious grounds rather than on a sacred ground. We don't have to be vegetarian or whatever. They want to be defended as well. They want people to defend themselves. They don't have to be vegetarian. We don't hear them like life say, like, "They belong to the United Church of Christ. They don't have to be pro-life." Or, "They're a humanitarian. They don't have to be pro-life." Or, "Judaism, you know, they're a religion permit abortion. They don't see the fetus as a person." So, you know, they can have an abortion if they want, et cetera. You know, we don't hear them say that. That is where your moral relativistic thinking inevitably leads. The conclusion is you either have to write a book to try to show all the world's religions support the pro-life position, which should be hard to do. That would be approach taken by writer Stephen Rose, where he tried to show in Food for the Spirit in 1987 that all the world's great religions support the vegetarian way of life. Or, you can just say, "Well, it's not deals religion. Let's just, you know, use secular arguments. Secular arguments are religion neutral, and they're applicable to everyone, including atheists and agnostics. That's politics, and that is a proper form to debate these issues. So, let's go back to the broad scope of arguments about abortion. There are certainly arguments that have been captivating to me, and maybe less so now than they used to be, that said, number one, as long as the fetus cannot live separate from the woman, there's an unusual dependency, and that's what the Supreme Court ruled. They said that as long as the fetus was not viable, you couldn't do abortion. So, that's a very particular condition. I don't know if we have any other equivalent of that outside of a woman. So, is she required to hold to a higher level of care for this child inside, or including if maybe she got pregnant because of incest or because of rape, which are of course a very small number of the actual pregnancies. But the point is, do we hold her to a higher standard of responsibility? Do we compromise her rights further than we do anyone else's? So, for instance, the father who was responsible for that child growing inside, is he held to the same level of responsibility as that woman? I would say he should be. John Morrill was arguing using that thing that stronger paternity laws might help, teaching men that women says no, she means no, women are not, play things for men or objects of sexual exploitation, et cetera. How effective that would be? I don't know. My friend, Amyr Thomas, a pro-choice feminist commented around that time when I mentioned these things that John Morrill was advocating. He's kind of thinking, good luck with that. You know, we can't even get men to pay paternity or child support. Here's the valid point. Of course, that's more law enforcement, just like arguing, well, how will we enforce laws against abortion? That's more of a law enforcement issue. And it may or may not be practical. First, you have to agree that the fetus is the person that should be protected, not everyone is grieving on that. Then we have to decide what is the kind of strategy we're going to take to protect them once we've decided that they're persons. I don't smoke drink or do any drugs, but I mean, I'm a glasser of the ACLU points out that the surveillance technology, eavesdropping, hidden cameras, all of that was developed during the prohibition era. And still, they couldn't stop you from drinking, et cetera. In prohibition, it isn't a radical statement to say the prohibition of alcohol in the United States failed. You know, many civil liberties groups now are saying, maybe we should be looking at ending marijuana prohibition as well, which is 75% of the drug war anyway, and it's safe for the alcohol tobacco, but I digress. Anyway, fact is that whether or not we should turn American to police, state, et cetera, one nation under surveillance is, of course, itself is another matter of the time. The first we have to debate the person that are the unborn. Everyone has different views on it, secular and religious. Everyone has a little fair hearing in this regard. So first we have to arrive at a consensus that we are unjustly stepping on someone. The liberals are used that we're more -- in the '80s, we're willing to concede that point. Then today we see conservatives acknowledging, like, yes, killing animals is unjust, et cetera, et cetera. Usually the conservatives hide behind the religious beliefs, rather than make the knowledge that killing animals is more or wrong. So that is in my experience. But you do make a valid point that the liberals are being inconsistent in this regard when they go on about social injustices, war, capital punishment, killing people unjustly, and essentially, but then they look the other way to abortion, they try to rationalize it away, et cetera. But I thought more often than not, liberals are more willing to concede on abortion. We might be unjustly stepping on someone. They're more willing to cause it than conservatives are when it comes to animals. Even Romans 14, even if you argue that the issue on Paul's mind was not the ethical treatment of animals, Norm Phelps, in his book The Dominion of Love, analyzed according to the Bible. Norm was raised a fundamentalist Christian, became an atheist at an early age. In 1984, he became a Buddhist. He's one of the Dalai Lama that the Dalai Lama should return to a vegetarian diet, and that if he doesn't, Buddhism in the West is likely to become a feel-good philosophy that appeals to yuppies and new-agers. But Norm Phelps says that that issue, the ethical treatment of animals, which has motivated great thinkers and visionaries from Pythagoras to Susan B. Anthony, to Gandhi, to Tolstoy, Klevanar, Da Vinci, et cetera. That issue is even on Paul's radar screen. He said, "For Paul the issue is just whether or not the meat was offered to pagan idols and whether or not one should eat food off of the pagan idols with regard to vegetarianism." The history of the early church suggests otherwise that Christianity was a vegetarian religion, started out past the Christian vegetarian like Buddhism. So the serious moral gravity involved in taking the lives of animals, I found conservative Christians rarely feared that way. Liberals admit with abortion, you know, this is a serious issue. We might be violating someone who's right here. I don't see that with conservatives with regard to animals. Quite the opposite. They think they can do as they please. You're just going to laugh and scoff at it. They don't seem to take animals too seriously. They're sensing over stem cell research, you know, while ignoring the research on sentient animals. The opposition to animal research is a longer history. The American Institute of the Section Society was founded in 1883 by Caroline Earl White, nearly a century before PETA, which was founded in 1980. So Christian conservatives, the one who dominated the pro-life movement, they're the one who were kind of ridiculing the idea that animals have rights. Whereas liberals are, you know, some of them are kind of flipped about it. You know, like Dave Butler making the statement, "abortion slavery, not even close." If you believe it's wrong, keep meat. The generality imposed on everyone else. But for the most part, you know, you'll find liberals agree it is a serious human rights issue. And a lot of liberals advocate different strategies for ending it. The Colorado Peace Mission in Boulder, Colorado. This is documented in my book "The Liberal Case Against Abortion." They're saying, "Want to stop abortions? Make them unnecessary. Provide everyone with choice of who to engage in sex with. Save the portal of wealth control. You know, open arms. Talk about sex, et cetera, et cetera and so forth." So they're advocating a liberal solution, of course. Ending the '70s, Jesse Jackson, as a reverend, in 1977, was saying how he approved of the backseat blow job scene in the original uncut r-weighted version of "Saturday Night Fever" because they later released the PG version for the younger crowd. I was a teenager back then, so I remember all this. But he approved the backseat blow job scene in the r-weighted version of "Saturday Night Fever" because it showed young people what to do. You know, should they be, you know, in the heated passion, in the inner course, and they haven't got easy access to contraception, what to do. Reagan, the presidential candidate, three years later, Robert Scheer was interviewing him, and Reagan was complaining about young people having access to contraception. Saying that under mind, the authority of the family, Robert Scheer asked, "Wouldn't that also prevent the unplanned pregnancies you're so concerned about?" And Reagan said, "Whatever happened to saying no?" Robert Scheer was saying, "Is Reagan out of touch with reality? Is he unaware of the changes that have happened in American society since the '60s? Reagan appeared to be out of touchness regarding so forth." And I've noticed, maybe it's deliberate hypocrisy on the part of Christian conservatives. They're enjoying the past 500 years of secular social progress. You know, the abolition of slavery, the emancipation of women, democracy and representative government, the separation of church and state, birth control, the sexual revolution, they're enjoying all this, and then they have a call to claim they claim to be Bible believers. So we have logical, ethical inconsistencies on both the liberal and conservative sides of this issue, though you clearly think that there is more hope of getting liberals to face their inconsistencies than getting conservatives to do the same. It's obvious that you've gone through the research and analysis to make you extremely well prepared to look at abortion from virtually any direction. In the first part of this interview, you were talking mainly about the justification or lack thereof for hurting, harming and eating animals, looking at the concern from Eastern and Western religious points of view and also from a secular perspective. And now we're focusing on abortion. And what is unique in my experience is the way you link the broad range of peace and life issues. Many, maybe most people, don't see them as related. They do see peace and animal rights and abortion as separate non-related issues. What if it's necessary to seek to kill animals in order to end the abortion crisis? I've given the analogies of carbon cause and effect to you earlier. You know, like if someone were to say, if a green party activist were saying, well, what first end the water crisis and then we'll worry about factory farming and killing animals and raising animals for food is causing the water crisis, so, you know, that's kind of stupid to take that kind of approach. So, similarly, if it could be shown that there's a red cause and effect relationship, collective karma, killing animals causes the abortion crisis, would that be enough to convince our friends in the peace and pro-life movements? If it could be shown that there's a direct relationship, food economy, environment, or war, et cetera, between the killing of human animals being and killing of human beings, would this be enough to convince our friends in the peace and pro-life movements to become vegetarian, to go vegan, et cetera, doing so would be literally pro-life? As you've already said, good luck on getting an open response from the more doctrinaire end of the spectrum. I guess there is also a real inconsistency within conservative circles about how to deal with life issues. Is it something the government should regulate, or is it a private religious domain? Does the religious right want to legislate religious morals, or don't they? Conservatives may talk about how, you know, we want religion in a public square, and all this, but they take advantage of church-day separation when it suits them, saying, well, the government was never intended to create a state church, or that means that the government can't intrude in the affairs of religions, you know, like dictate like you have to read from the green Bible, or a certain portion of your clergy have to be LGBTs. They would never don't stand for that. John Hannity, the conservative, was warning about, you know, the neo-political correctness. Churches not being able to preach against homosexuality, or the future in which churches, which don't recognize same-sex marriages lose their taxes and status, et cetera. So even conservatives see the advantage of church-day separation, keeping the government from meddling in religious affairs. And liberal theater is a way of keeping it theocracy at bay, you know, freedom from religion. And a lot of religious groups call themselves that, the freedom from religion foundation, et cetera, and so on, a lot of anti-religious groups. So church-day separation is a good thing. You're listening to Spirit and Action, and I'm your host, Mark Helpsmeat, for this northern spirit radio production, website, northernspiritradio.org, where you can listen to all of our archives, find links to our guests and other info, and where you can leave us comments and feedback. Write and let us know what you think and where you're listening from. Maybe you found us on your radio dial somewhere across the nation, perhaps from our website, or our RSS feed, or maybe via iTunes. Wherever and whoever you are, we look forward to hearing from you. Today's Spirit and Action guest is Vasu Murti. He's author of two published books and lots of other articles, pamphlets, and books in the making. They shall not hurt nor destroy. It explores our relationship to animals from a Western religious perspective, though Vasu is himself of a Hindu family. In this hour, we're focusing on his second book, The Liberal Case Against Abortion. I think most of us have come to assume over the past couple decades that to be a liberal is to be pro-choice, while conservatives have adopted the name pro-life. In the liberal case against abortion, Vasu explores the secular reasons for a deep concern for human life before birth, inextricably linked to Vasu's concern for all sentient life. Now, back to you Vasu. We were just talking about, especially conservative attitudes about separation of church and state, how they tend to retreat behind that constitutional barrier sometimes to protect their prerogatives. Obviously, it would be a stretch to force them, or really anyone, to support the idea of the rights of animals. I don't think there are a lot of conservatives on the animal rights bandwagon, but at least on the left, you've got supporters. And there are conservatives, like my friend Dave Goggin, who I know through the San Francisco Beta Chant Society, he dismisses the threat of global warming. He was saying it's like a secular apocalypse, and he was arguing he gets his news from conservative blogs, but he's already vegan and dedicated to the cause of equal rights and justice for animals. So then there are conservatives in the animal rights movie, and Ingrid Newkrick was the one who said it should be bipartisan, and in an interview with Jackie Dove, here in the Bay Area, in 1999, she was saying, "Just like we all recall that the children is wrong, John Stuart Mill said the reason for legal intervention in the case of children applies not less strongly in the case of those unfortunate slaves, the animals." So just as we can all agree, whether you're a Republican, whether you're a Democrat, whether you're pro-life, whether you're pro-choice, we can all agree cruelty to children is wrong. We can all agree cruelty to animals is wrong. That was the approach Sarah Foster took, and when I first heard her speak, Sarah Foster, famous for life, she spoke at Stanford University. She was asking me, "What is the position on abortion with regard to animal rights activists?" And I said, "We're divided." And she said, "Understanding me. The Children's Defense Fund is also divided on abortion." So she could immediately see the connection. Children, animals, just as different children's advocates are going to take different views on abortion. That's going to be expected of animal advocates, too. So certainly conservatives are welcome, but I generally see the link to the flag I'm picking up or that I'm receiving is that the conservatives are in difficult to animal rights. So my experience has been, I could be wrong, you know, Bruce Friedrich of PETA at a PETA workshop in 2008. He spoke favorably of conservatives who taken action on behalf of animals. He spoke favorably of Bob Doley, he spoke favorably of Pat Buchanan of all people, and saying that, you know, on Pat Buchanan's website, conservative website, they were speaking favorably of concern for animals and so forth. Matthew Stulli, speech writer for George W. Bush, and Sarah Palin, I think, he wrote the book Dominion. He took a Dominion decision that humans have dominion over the other hand, but that means we should be treating animals with compassion. Now, with his take on things, he mentioned some of the worst injustices. Cantons, Safari Club, and, you know, some of the worst abuses of factory farming, which is fine, but it doesn't know far enough. What's wrong with advocating veganism? What's wrong with telling others? It's wrong to animals. You know, religious communities take stand on moral issues all the time. You know, like racism is wrong, or, you know, it's wrong to kill the unborn, poverty, social injustice. Religious communities take stand on moral issues all the time. What is wrong with saying it's wrong to kill animals and, you know, even among liberals, when the book "Kenny Bitch" was released by Rory Friedman and Kim Bardo, and it was telling young girls, you know, how to stop eating crap and start looking fabulous. And it was well received by the vegan community here in the Bay Area, Vetch News, which was slick, trendy, vegan publication out of San Francisco. They were raving about looking at everything. In secular society, even among liberals, the reaction was different. In law.com, in 2007 or 2008, they were dismissing it as, you know, a family decides vegan manifesto. So I commented, "What's wrong with the vegan manifesto?" What is wrong with telling those not to kill animals? So there's plenty of length to go around when it comes to the crisis we face. When you first have to call us that, it is a crisis. Before we're going to end abortion, we have to all agree that the unborn are persons, or that it has to be enough of a consensus for us to agree on that, that the unborn are persons that are being unjustly killed. I don't see that happening. The Christians aren't exactly approaching people of their faith, like the Hindu community, in a spirit of friendship and understanding. The Bhagavad Gita is one of the world's great scriptures, like the Bible or the Quran. This Christian discussed abortion in the Bhagavad Gita. What's your take on things? Do you believe in karma and reincarnation? What strategy was should we be pursuing to end the crisis? Do you even see it as the crisis? Some religions don't regard them as persons, so they don't see a crisis. Even in secular politics, when the Webster decision was won before the Supreme Court, in the spring of 1899, there was a huge pro-choice rally in Washington, D.C. There was a liberal politician, a Democrat, who was speaking before the crowd, and he was saying kind of glibly, "We haven't killed anyone. We've saved women's lives, not seeing the unborn as persons." There's a blind spot when it comes to liberals, when it comes to the unborn, and with conservatives, the blind flat is from regard to animals. Pro-life literature shows a first-down photo of an unborn child that says when they tell you abortion is a private decision between a woman and her doctor, they're ignoring someone and it shows the ultrasound photo of the unborn. Similarly, conservatives are ignoring the killing of all the animals. You think your meat comes from. You know, an animal, because you haven't got the gut to kill an animal yourself, you pay someone else to kill the animal for you, then you go around ridiculing vegetarians as being weak or whatever, then you go around saying, you know, like, "We're omnivores." What kind of abnormal or predator pays someone else to kill the animal for them? And it's causing all these other problems. We're inflicting all this, you know, we're causing arteries, inflicting all kinds of misery on our bodies and upon the environment. Somehow, we've diluted ourselves into thinking we need meat to survive when actually the opposite is true. My own personal experience and political activism has been that the liberals can see that abortion is not just a religious issue, it's also a human rights issue. Many liberals, some liberals usually had a religious issue like, "Oh, you're born again, you know, so, you know, your views on abortion don't apply to me." But I get to see the conservative side acknowledge with regards to animals that it is a serious moral issue and that they really ought to be addressing it. And there's plenty of scope within the pro-life room for them to see the direct connection. If pro-lifers have trouble seeing it as a direct pro-life issue, thank you, life issue, the way a lot of pro-lifers look at abortion and euthanasia, for example, there's no reason why they can't see it as a directly related cause, like women's rights and civil rights. Rose Evans, who published Harmony Voices for a Just Future, a justice periodical on the religious left, she told me on occasion that the abolitionists didn't take women's efforts seriously. They were saying, "Oh, we'll get that in the future, blah, blah, et cetera." And that's the reaction I see I encounter from a lot of pro-lifers. The religious times, certainly, when it comes to animal issues, they don't see it as directly relevant. But if it can be shown that it is a solution to the abortion crisis, will they be willing to listen? And it's very least, if you consider it as a possible solution, like the Vietnam analogy I give at the end of the liberal case against abortion, both the right and the left were advocating different strategies for ending the war, Nixon claimed to have a secret plan, George McGovern said, "I have no secret plan. I have a public plan. I will halt the bombing on an "auguration day." In either case, they were advocating different strategies for ending the war. Similarly, the right and the left, they have different strategies for ending the abortion crisis. But first, you have to acknowledge that there is a crisis to speak of. I just get a lot of resistance coming from the conservative side. That is my own experience. To be in the wrong, again, they shall not hurt a destroy, has gotten a very favorable response from Christian, Mediterranean, and vegans of whom I have the deepest respect, whether they're political beings or liberal conservatives. For many of them, I do not know. Rachel McNair, you know Rachel. You know Rachel personally. And of course, if her own activism, she's made friends with those in the conservative side of the political spectrum, although her views are very much of a political liberal. Are you able to connect with people on the not progressive side of the spectrum? Are you able to connect and talk and advocate in those areas? Because you do have, as they do concerned about abortion, are you able to communicate with them? And certain instances, yes, when Cal McMan, a Protestant pastor, contacted me in, I think it was in 2004, he cited the example of, you know, like the Bible, who really seemed to support a vegetarian message, certainly with Christianity, who was saying he gave the example of the parable of the return of the prodigal son in Luke's Gospel. You know, how the father says, you know, when overjoyed that his wayward center returned, he says, you know, he'll look at it and cast. He doesn't say, break up the veggie burgers. That was Cal McMan, think of what I said. That's true. I cited the example of Christian theologian, I think he's a Presbyterian minister, or was Dr. Upton Clara Ewing, who cited that parable suffered a deliberate interpretation, or interpolation, by later generations of copyists, because it looks kind of tactfully disclosed. The father is saying things like, break forth the fatter cap, and killing an animal, seeing that it's the only way to celebrate. And the other son, who would never left his father's side, was saying things like, "Thou never even gave me a kid that I might make merry." And Dr. Ewing comments, "Why is the traditional way to make merry?" Even in the Bible, et cetera, you know, not killing animals, as he just said that parable might have been messed with. What I said to you earlier, I said to Cal, "If you're a biblical literalist, I might not be able to convince you." But there are compelling reasons why vegetarianism, the values that represent the core of Christianity, and why it's consistent with what Christianity teaches them. And you can see what the point I was trying to make is, you know, if you're talking about sharing your bread with the hungry, if you're talking about feeding the poor and clothing the naked as Jesus commands, you'll find a teacher to do these things. You're thwarting your own cause on a meat-centered diet. Even Peter Singer asked that question. Those who say humans come first, what are they doing in meat when that means not just the majority of animals are being killed for meat, but also 40% of the world's grain or whatever is being fed to livestock, resources that can be used to feed the poor. Peter is now challenging those who think they can be environmental activists to go vegan if they really care about the planet. So on the left, these issues are slowly making inroads. On the left, they're debating, you know, grain fed versus grass fed, factory farming versus free-range, local wars, sustainable agriculture. And obviously, not everyone on the left is vegan, but at least these issues are being discussed. The right doesn't even give these issues the time of day. That's, you know, another reason I'm on the left. And that, on the right, this can make some religious ground as well. You know, I've noticed that. If I'm seeking that, I mean, it's abortion. No, listen. But as soon as I offer this, listen to the crisis, they're saying, do you worship in a church or in a temple? Does this anything right in left hand? Do you work for your salvation? No, give me a third degree. None of these issues are brought up on these issues of abortion. Only when we give them the solution of the crisis. This religion seems to matter to them. To me, just I always hear a bunch of biggest double standards. You know, the Christians, they may be anti-Catholic, homophobic, anti-Semitic, but they're willing to put aside their religious differences, and listen to Dr. Wilkie, who I believe is Catholic, when Dr. Wilkie is arguing for the person who is the unborn. They're willing to listen to Nat Hentopf, who's not only Jewish and atheist, but a political liberal. So they're willing to put aside their differences, even political differences, to listen to those outside of their faith, or on the other end of the political spectrum, and those who have not believed in God. But when it comes to animals, so eventually we're coming from a Christian conservative. If we're coming from G. Gordon Liddy, or Bob Doornan, or Robert Smith to New Hampshire, former senator, or Bob Barker for that matter, a person who won PETA awards and are conservative Republicans, would you be listening? Then under the safety and logic for their reluctance to take to animal issues. And it's not like to be converted into other religion. Make them listen to the voice in their own tradition. It's not sectarian in the myth mode, because they're willing to, on abortion, they're willing to listen to others outside of their religion. It's obviously not politicized if they're willing to listen to people on the other side of the political spectrum. So I'm not sure what it is that is preventing them from looking at animal rights as a serious solution to the abortion crisis, and these two causes of joining forces. I'm making a statement that you're not going to be able to end the abortion crisis until you cease to kill animals. So one is dependent upon the other. Which one is of course subject to debate? In the heartland of America, they may be indifferent to the butchering of animals, but they're not going to take the butchering of the unborn lightly. That was what someone in use that pointed out. Despite what liberals on the coast may think, and the Hollywood elite and so forth, the majority of Americans are not going to stand by and tolerate the butchering of babies. And he was saying that shows out, out of touch, the elite liberals are with mainstream America. And there may be some truth to that. Part of the problem is that the pro-animal people themselves don't really know how to connect with the pro-life community in this regard. And I'm often wondering about that. For your pro-life, wouldn't you prefer to hear a message from people who share your values, like faith in God and who are opposed to killing the unborn on human rights ground, et cetera? Or would you prefer to hear a message from cynical atheist agnostic types, like Peter Singer or Ingrid Newkirk or Bill Maher, for that matter? Who would you prefer to hear the message from? But first we got into killing of animals, and then all these other crises, including the abortion crisis, see how the world will change and how these strikes will come to an end. Peter and animal rights literature, they rarely reach out to the religious community. Peter began to do so, but even then when Bruce Friedrich, who was with the Catholic worker community, and in a Catholic worker house in Washington, D.C., the Dorothy Day Catholic worker house in Washington, D.C., Bruce was saying how Peter sent out literature to Jerry Falwell and Pat Roberts, some of these other religious leaders, saying, you know, "Jesus wasn't a scene, and the scenes were vegetarian." So the Christian should be telling their followers to be vegan and not to consume animal products, et cetera, et cetera. He was saying that the reason for doing so was he said, "We want to piss off the fundamentalist." And I was like, "Well, I can appreciate what he's telling from in this regard." But we should be looking and reaching out to them as potential allies, not trying to alienate them. There's nothing about going around already. There is enough communication between these two groups, and neither side seems to understand the other, and that's part of the problem. Well, Vasu, we've covered an awful lot of territory, both about vegetarianism and abortion, about Eastern and Western religions. Again, your books are encyclopedic in their contents. And I think, as people could tell, by just listening to you, you've got a command of a wide range of literature, history, of ethics, of logic. It's impressive if they pick up, they shall not hurt or destroy animal rights and vegetarianism in the Western religious traditions. If they pick up the liberal case against abortion, which may go against some of their assumptions, I think they'll find closely reasoned, closely evidenced arguments that are worth engaging with. If they do that, I think the world will be better for it. I thank you so much for the research, clearly the passion that you've brought to this. And I thank you for joining us for Spirit in Action. Thank you for taking the time to interview me. We've been visiting today with Vasu Merti for Spirit in Action. You can hear the first hour of my interview with Vasu at northernspiritradio.org and you can find more info on him and his writings by following the link on my site. I hope you found this whole discussion illuminating. I know Vasu Merti's research and insights have opened whole vistas for me. I've spent almost all of my adult life with the assumption that concern about life in terms of war, capital punishment, and care for animals were on one side of offense and concern for the unborn was on the opposite side of that fence. And I count it as a failing on my side that I didn't realize that there were people out there seamlessly combining them as the folks in the consistent life movement do. I should have known better, especially because I was fond of a song from back then. I heard about mid-70s by a group from Tyler, Texas called Gladstone. The song seems to question conventional wisdom and values about marriage in war, pushing the liberal edge of the time, but also questioning an acceptance of abortion, simply because it was now legal. We'll take you out for today's Spirit in Action with a fine song by Gladstone, a piece of paper on each next week for Spirit in Action. In order to form a more perfect union, a man and a woman become husband and wife, a piece of paper says they'll start a new life, a piece of paper says it's all right. In order to form a more perfect union, religion will cost a man one tenth of his gold, a piece of paper says he's redeemed his soul, a piece of paper says he's all right. You know paper is only paper, and you know people, well they try to be good. Some folks live by others paper, some folks live like you should. So in order to form a more perfect union, a legal abortion, so the family won't know, a piece of paper says the problem won't grow, a piece of paper makes it all right. In order to form a more perfect union, a country will call on its young men to fight, a piece of paper says it's all right today, a piece of paper says it's all right. A piece of paper says it's all right. A piece of paper makes it all, a piece of paper says it's all right. The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson. This Spirit in Action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along, and our lives will feel the echo of our healing. (upbeat music)