Killing animals, in factory farms or otherwise, is an affront to the sensitive nature of the human conscience.

Imagine the impact it has when a killing is witnessed by a child (or someone of any age, for that matter) who is not desensitized to it, as those who kill have to be.

We are not blood-thirsty predators who salivate at the sight or smell of blood. We are sensitive beings with the ability to reason and to empathize with others. These attributes are what make us love and be loved by each other, yet they are repressed by a society that wants to harden us, so that we are even willing to kill each other, if the politics of the day deem it necessary.

Underneath it all, we are caring, kind people who don’t want to see others suffer.

Over the course of centuries, we have altered our body’s chemistry by consuming flesh and blood, instead of the goodness of plant foods, creating a society of people who are de-sensitized to the suffering of other creatures, who feel pain just as our dogs and cats do.

We are just as capable of altering our body’s chemistry the other way, by making actions that are motivated by humanity’s higher qualities: compassion, kindness, and mercy toward those who are powerless in our hands.

I believe that the time is now for us to make choices that will help us evolve into a community of more ethically-driven people. What that will require is a willingness to depart from our old ways of thinking and behaving towards others, including animals.