I tried using both your Letter to the Editor and Contact the Webmaster forms. They don't work. There are CGI problems.

So, here is my email. :-)

Thank you,
~Katarina

In response to Alec Rawl's Oct 24, 2002 article claiming that vegetarianism is genocide...

If a person is vegan, he is a vegetarian. But if a person is a vegetarian, he may not be a vegan. Also, not all vegetarians are animal lovers. And not all animal lovers are vegetarians.

Also, Mr. Rawls's opinion appears to be that all vegetarians choose to refrain from meat eating solely because of the poor animals and the inhumane ways of raising them. However, that is not true. Some vegetarians choose to not eat meat, or less of it, because of health or religious reasons. Others, choose to do so because the world can support more people on a vegetable and grain diet due to inevitable energy loss through heat or motion as energy is passed up the food chain. And others are just plain too poor (ie third world countries) to dine on main courses of meat on a daily basis. Furthermore, there is a strange group, who, heaven forbid, are just plain picky and don't like the taste of meat.

Furthermore, I am puzzled as to how not eating the animals would be causing genocide (as opposed to eating them.) Wouldn't eating them be genocide as well?

I would better understand his argument against vegetarianism if he argued that small towns whose population was mainly supported through raising and selling cows for beef would be decimated without the demand of more beef. Economically, that would destroy groups of people's means of livelihood.

Hypothetically, if the whole world became vegetarian overnight, yes, there would be an excess of animals hanging around, living a miserable existence. But due to economics, less animals would be produced - so eventually, the excess would either die or be used up by some other means. Once anything is born, it also dies. There is no way to save them from death - except by preventing birth. This can happen if the demand for more animals is cut.

Not being born, or even, not being conceived, is not genocide.