As the truck carries the youngsters away, their distraught mothers run after it, wailing in desperation. This heartbreaking scene isn't from an illegal border crossing _ it's footage from a recent PETA Asia expose of an Australian dairy farm.
Just as we are moved by footage of sobbing immigrant children being separated from their parents, detained, processed, jailed _ in effect, orphaned by bureaucratic red tape _ surely we also have room enough in our hearts to be moved by videos like the one I've just described.
Because most people will probably never search for one of these dairy farm videos online, PETA has placed a billboard in Tucson, Ariz., on the interstate leading to the migrant youth center Estrella del Norte, that shows a mother cow and her dearly loved calf next to the words "Don't Separate Any Loving Mothers From Their Children: Go Vegan." We are also delivering soy beverages to detention centers that are holding children, many of whom are lactose-intolerant: forgoing cow's milk, which, after all, is meant for calves, does not mean going without nourishment.
Not only do millions of cows lose their beloved calves to the veal and dairy industries year after year, they also have to endure being repeatedly raped. You can't call it anything else if you've seen cows being artificially inseminated _ it is painful even to describe. And then _ once their bodies are worn out after giving birth again and again and producing thousands of gallons of milk _ they are prodded onto a truck and hauled to the slaughterhouse.
One of those cows was the beautiful Ida Belle. PETA rescued her after she broke through the rail on a ship bound for a dairy farm in Venezuela, jumped overboard, and, although heavily pregnant, swam across Virginia's James River to freedom. After being brought to safety, she gave birth to a son, Jimmy, and lived the rest of her life with him. On that dairy farm in South America, he would have been taken away from her and she would have been slaughtered for cheap meat at the end of a very hard life.
PETA believes that all social justice issues are united under one principle: equal consideration of interests. Of course, many people reject the idea that injustice applies to anyone other than themselves or those they closely relate to, just as many people historically have rejected any comparison between whites and blacks or able-bodied people and people with disabilities and so on throughout history. It's our job to say, "We should be against all discrimination and unfairness."
PETA pushes the envelope and isn't afraid to draw parallels between humans' cruelty to each other and our cruelty to other animals. We want to provoke discussion and open people's eyes to the separation of families going on around us every day _ separations that we all play a role in every time we eat a dairy cheese pizza or drink an iced latte made with cow's milk.
Those of us who work at PETA's headquarters in Norfolk, Va., have read the historical plaques along our waterfront about the riots that broke out when slaves were unloaded at the docks there. In those days and even in the not-so-distant past (for example, last summer in Charlottesville), people were mocked and even physically attacked for daring to suggest that whites weren't the only ones who deserved consideration and that "others," too, have the right to live free from tyranny.
Thank goodness, those people were not afraid to speak out for what they knew was right. Because of them, the needle of progress moved forward. But today, cows are still bought, sold, deprived of their offspring, condemned to a life of servitude, and then killed.
If we politely stand around waiting until the world is ready to hear unpleasant truths, there will be no progress. If we never dare to court the criticism that is inevitable with any new or inconvenient idea, we will be poor advocates indeed.
If we are heartsick over the trauma that families are experiencing at the border, let's do something about it. And let's also extend our compassion across species lines and take action by switching to soy, almond, coconut or any other kind of plant-derived drink. It's easy to do, and, more importantly, it's kind.
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(Ingrid Newkirk is the president and founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.)
