We’re reflecting on this July 4th. I’m finding it difficult to celebrate this year as a fundamental liberty has been stripped from half of Americans – autonomy over our bodies. This move has created space for new attacks on women’s autonomy. In more ways than one, the Roe/Dobbs decision narrows the distance in the fights for human rights and animal rights. 

The parallels start with the matter of consent over our own physical being, and how that consent aligns with ecocentrism and true nonhuman autonomy. 

The decision also has massive repercussions for the non-human world. Many have chosen to remain childfree because of the impact that creating more people puts on animals raised for food, wildlife, the environment, and concern for the world that will be left to the next generation. The ability to choose has now been significantly limited, and for many, eliminated entirely. But we can push back. Our policy advisor, Carter Dillard was again published (with a great assist from GreenFire Law) in The Hill this week on this topic: State abortion bans create new governmental obligations for children.

My fellow animal advocates, I know that you, more than anyone else, grasp the urgency of large scale change in our food systems and beyond. We can’t remain safely in our silos while these intersecting crises hurdle towards an ever-increasingly harmful reality for the most vulnerable, across species.

I urge you, as the courageous game changers that you are, to take a clear position on the right to plan families as being instrumental to animal and environmental advocacy, and to mutual liberation. Planning is a human right.

Help us improve and protect it. 

We will be presenting on these issues at the Canadian Animal Law Conference 2022 – Animal Rights Toronto. Hope you can join us.