On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 11:22:55 -0400, "C. James Strutz" > wrote:
>"Digger" > wrote in message news >
>> If the vegan society want to pretend that human milk is
>> a valid source of nourishment for vegans to consume,
>> then they have no rational basis for excluding the milk
>> sourced from other animals.
>
>No. Veganism is a lifestyle that avoids the exploitation of animals.
>The case in which human mothers breastfeed their children is not
>exploitation.

Relieving a cow of her milk is not inherently cruel or
exploitative, so if your only objection to it as a valid
vegan food source is on the basis that it is, you must
then allow vegans to use diary products sourced from
animals which can be shown not to have been cruelly
treated or exploited.

>The case in which human mothers feed their children
>dairy milk is exploitation.

If exploitation is the sole reason for defining a food as
non-vegan, then what argument have you against those
who declare milk sourced from unexploited animals as
vegan fare? Also, it is on record that women can receive
£2.30 for each pint they express. What if some third-
World country were to take advantage of that market
and hold women in milk parlours to extract their milk
for a small wage; would that be vegan fare?

As you can see, exploitation is not the sole issue that
qualifies or disqualifies a food as vegan fare. Eggs,
for example, can be found on the ground, yet they
still don't qualify as a vegan foodstuff either, so your
basis for qualifying vegan foods on exploitation has
no grounds.

>You can't just blanket define anyone who
>comsumes milk as non-vegan without considering the exploitation
>issues.

Then you cannot exclude any diary product from the
list of vegan foods so long as it was produced without
cruelty and in a non-exploitative way.

>Agree with it or not, there's your rational basis.

And it fails.