I’ve been wondering this, but never really looked into the matter: Is spaying/neutering really an ethical thing to do? Doesn’t it affect cats in some negative way, besides taking away their ability to reproduce?
I’ve been thinking about adopting cats, which would be sterile anyway, but it doesn’t exactly seem like a nice thing to do if you can avoid it : \
I can’t imagine removing a healthy part of the endocrine system has good results in the long term. If it’s an option, perhaps an ovarian preserving spay, or a vasectomy, would be in order. Though not many vets in the US offer such procedures. If only we could be more like Germany…
I was adopted by a stray kitten and had her spayed when she was old enough. A friend told me I had taken away her “choice” to reproduce. I asked her how many of my cat’s hypothetical offspring she was willing to adopt - there would be I guess an annual litter of four or more to choose from. Yeah no.
In the end I moved countries and gave the cat away. I would never have another one, nice as she was. There’s a family of voles living in my garden, half a dozen frogs in the pond and lots of birds visit my trees. I support them mainly by leaving them to go about their business.
It reduces suffering of potential unwanted offspring and the suffering of local bird populations so I would argue that it’s unethical to not spay or neuter your cat, even if the individual cat suffers a bit from it.
I think there is an interesting argument on whether it’s ethical to keep pets at all however
I had an indoor female cat that I left unfixed. In about three years of getting into heat without getting pregnant, her hormones went wild. She was in constant heat, losing weight, getting gland flare-ups and other serious health problems. In the end I had to have her fixed to save her. If I did it in the beginning, it would have been much less suffering for her.
#1 Pets are like teenagers, they are gonna try to have sex without you knowing.
#2 I don’t think it’s healthy or ethical to keep an animal indoors 24/7. Even pet animals need unstructured (not unsupervised) time outside to have play and use their instinct beyond just taking them for a walk. I’d apply that equal to dogs and cats although it’s probably more important for dogs.
An open area where he can run around is probably best. Depends on where you live and your cat’s preferences. I’ve heard of cats that have no desire to leave the house and others that will dart out the door at any opportunity. If you have an apartment or no fence in the back yard then it’s not a great option. Some cats do like to walk, our neighbors’ cat usually joins us on our nightly walks through the neighborhood. Off a leash of course.
Is it ethical to “adopt” a cat? My cat lives a good life, she is old and healthy and well feed, never having to worry about anything. But it is ethical to own another living being, even if you offer it the best possible life it can have in return? I really don’t know.
But if you do adopt a cat, I think you need to do everything that ensures the cat has a healthy life, like getting shots and check ups etc. Neutering the cat is also an important part of keeping it healthy. After all, it greatly reduces the risk of either gender getting cancer in their reproductive organs and a lot of other issues.
At what point does an life form become a pet? Can a particularly mobile carnivorous plant be a pet? If you refuse to take down a spider web and shoo flies toward it, does the spider become a pet? If you release ladybugs in your apartment to cull aphids, are they pets? If you briefly tend a goat to sacrifice it to Morlak, lord of dreams, to steal everything but your landlord’s nightmares, is the goat a pet?
Potentially unpopular opinion: This analogy implies that the impoverished are a threat to politicians and rich people, yet sadly I feel like today’s society will/would never fight back. We have a major apathy problem among younger millennials and younger gens I’ve noticed.
It doesn’t matter if the opinion is popular or not, because it is simply untrue.
“According to the Census Bureau, voter turnout in the off-year 2018 election was the highest in four decades. Driving that record engagement in part was a near-doubling in participation from voters aged 18-29. Voting among this cohort increased by 79 percent, with younger voters responsible for 36 percent of votes cast (up from 20 percent in the previous election).”
“Members of Gen Z are more racially and ethnically diverse than any previous generation, and they are on track to be the most well-educated generation yet.”
“ Millennials are more racially diverse, more tuned in to the power of networks and systems and more socially progressive than either Gen X or baby boomers on nearly every available metric. They tend to favor government-run health care, student debt relief, marijuana legalization and criminal-justice reform, and they demand urgent government action on climate change.”
My experience so far is that most places say they don’t accept them but if you ask and you have a small dog, they’ll prefer taking a chance instead of leaving the place empty… But if you’ve got a big dog and you don’t own your own place then… You made some bad choices…
If I were renting I’d allow anyone to have pets if they were willing to increase their security deposit by the cost of replacing all the mounted rugs in the apartment. But if they stayed for many years and I had to replace them anyway just on wear and tear id give them the money back when they left.
Oh my, you were an exception, how does it makes you feel? ☺️
Did you read the part about “owning your own place”? You technically did, you just had to move temporarily due to exceptional circumstances, that’s not the same thing as buying a big dog and expecting to be able to easily find somewhere to rent.
We need to fully remove subsidies on corn… Hemp is a full replacement that offers far more uses… AND it makes great fabrics to further reduce the use of polyester
If you grow corn with subsidy and then sell that corn as livestock feed to cows, then you’ve indirectly further subsidized beef.
Though… this viewpoint is partly misleading people. Corn stalks and pith which humans can’t eat and need ruminant animals to process is what gets fed to them. We don’t always feed corn kernels to cows en masse, though many farms do. If they can find a buyer for the kernel for other consumption (human, fructose syrup, etc), they will sell it that way as it is more profitable. So even if it wasn’t subsidized and we only produce high priced corn for humans, we’d still feed the stalks and pith to cows.
Correct, but the vast majority of corn subsidies are to grow corn not meant for humans to eat. They are to grow animal feed, or ethanol.
So the first category I count as subsidizing the meat industry, since it exists purely to make raising live stock cheaper. The second category doesn’t really impact food.
I use semaglutide to cure me of my snacking problem. I hardly ever snack anymore. Eat more healthy and lighter meals. It’s been a lifesaver and I don’t have to worry about being prediabetic anymore.
Same! It is a miracle drug for sure! I am diabetic and obese and it has fixed me to where I eat normally. I feel that I eat as appropriately as a person of a healthy weight which has resulted in me losing 50 lbs since January. I was a person that was at 315 lbs, so you know I did a lot extracurricular eating. When I eat out now, I either order something really small or I’m able to eat half of it and have the other half for later… It’s like I’m getting my meals 50% off, lol!
I hope that this drug can be of readily available for any obese person. There’s even evidence that it can help with other non-food related addictions too.
memes
Oldest
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.