Shared Liberation: Why Animal Rights and Human Rights Are Linked
"Animal Liberation. Human Liberation." These words are more than just a slogan, they are a moral truth. The fight for animal freedom is inseparable from the struggle for human dignity, justice, and peace. When we normalize violence toward animals, we reinforce systems of domination, exploitation, and hierarchy that bleed into how we treat each other.
Factory farms, for example, rely on human suffering too. Low-wage laborers, often migrants, are exposed to unsafe conditions while slaughtering animals who never wanted to die. This isn't compassion. It's oppression, repeated in different forms. The mindset that justifies using animals as tools is the same mindset that reduces people to means to an end. Whether it’s racism, sexism, or speciesism, the root is domination.
Choosing veganism is not just about changing what's on your plate. It's about rejecting violence in all forms. It's about dismantling the false divide between “us” and “them,” whether that “them” is another species or another race.
A liberated society starts with recognizing every sentient being’s right to live free from harm. True liberation demands that we include the voiceless and the powerless in our circle of concern. When animals are no longer treated as property, human beings, too, will begin to break free from systems that rely on cruelty to function.
Animal liberation is human liberation. Always.