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Vegan @lemmy.ml

UndecidedYellow @sh.itjust.works

2y ago

Is breastmilk vegan?

My husband says yay, I say nay. What are your thoughts?

43 comments

Depends on your rationale.
If it's to avoid all animal products no matter what, then it's not, because it's an animal product.
If it's to avoid exploitation of animals, than it is, because it's given willingly.
- There are definitely moments when I don't want to breastfeed, but I still do because I think it's best for the baby, it's free, and it requires no washing up of bottle parts. In those moments, I'm not being forced, but I'm not 10000% willing either. Still vegan at those times?
  
  You have free will. Animals giving us milk do not.
  
  I'm curious where this question is coming from. Why does it matter whether you attach the label "vegan"?
  
  So you still out of your own free will decide to give milk to your kid. It's not as if your husband pins you down and forces you to give milk to your kid... You might not enjoy it, but nothing is stopping you from not giving it.
  Use some common sense...
  
  That's why I said it matters what your criteria is.
  To me, it is. You're not being forced or coerced, you're just not enthusiastic about what you chose.
  A moral system that doesn't allow people to feed their children is broken.

I've always viewed consent as the dividing line.
If someone freely gives away their breastmilk then it's vegan. If it's taken through some kind of exploitation then it's not, even if someone agreed to be milked. A person who is forced to sell their breast milk to pay rent is not selling a vegan product, for example.
- Would you say that if someone breastfeeds because they feel pressured by society to do so, the milk is no longer vegan?
  
  I think the nature of the pressure matters, but certainly there are coercive and non vegan pressures on people who choose to breastfeed. It's gotta be free choice, which is a dicey prospect in an unfree society 😔

Either you want to breastfeed or you do not and the question ends there and then.
The baby depends solely on you for food, warmth and connection. It's a biological imperative. You either provide or you don't.
Debating if a fluid your own body produces to fullfil the needs of another life you - hopefully! - willing and actively created is anything but nonsensical.
- Relax. It's just a thought experiment.
  
  Thought experiments are designed to provoke thoughts, some of which are bound to disagreeable.

I think the point of veganism is to reduce harm and exploitation. Is the person willingly giving milk in the situation? Are they being exploited in any way related to the milk? If no, then it’s vegan.
The same question could be raised for other human products - like human hair wigs. If the person happily donated the hair, then I’d consider it vegan.

If it's acquired in fair and consensual circumstances, then I think it's vegan. But breastmilk is made to nourish newborns and it wouldn't be vegan for anyone but the newborn to consume most of the breastmilk
- I agree. It's the same with cows, the milk is produced for calves. And with humans the milk is produced for the newborns and contains a lot of important nutrients and such.
- Oh that's an interesting wrinkle. It's vegan if consumed by the infant for whom it was made (or willingly donated).
  What if I sell my milk to a body builder just so I have a little pocket money? Not an exorbitant amount of milk or money, and it's something I willingly do without any coercion. Vegan then?
  
  What if I sell my milk to a body builder just so I have a little pocket money?
  As long as you're doing it of your own free will without taking it away from your child, yes, probably. There is consent involved.
  But if your breast milk gets mixed into a batch that was produced from selected specimens who produce extraordinarily high volume of milk, impregnated with their babies taken away, tied to machines and milked in filthy conditions, kept alive by being fed antibiotics every day.... Yeah you get me.
  
  I have no idea if that's vegan or not, and honestly, no opinion on it's veganitudiness, but I'm curious... Is this a thing? Do bodybuilders buy and consume human milk?

I asked my vegan friend if they “swallow” and they said yes, because there was consent to do so. I’d go as far to extend that logic to breast milk being vegan too
If the former was for pleasure and is vegan, then surely the latter for nourishment is also vegan too. With the basis that both were consensual
- I hadn't considered that particular substance. Would this make donated blood a vegan product?
  
  From human to human? The sole purpose is to reduce animal (human) suffering. It is done willingly.

Isn't the point of veganism that animals cannot consent and so it's wrong to benefit from their labour. A human woman can consent to have her breastmilk harvested and drank, so then yes, it is vegan.

I knew a vegan activist who breastfed her kid so I figure from that, it is ok.

This thread would be removed from https://lemmy.ca/c/veganism
- Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !veganism@lemmy.ca
- Why is that? I'm not vegan but it's something I'm considering. This is my first attempt to connect with a vegan community. Might be my last 😕
  
  Because it wildly misunderstands the most very basic concepts of what veganism even is. Veganism has nothing to say about human breast milk or the ethical practices concerning it, just like it has nothing to say about bridge building, musical theory, or 1980s late night television.
  Post like this are helpful to people who are not vegans and are trying to figure out the absolute basics so that they can even begin to have a conversation. They are not useful to vegans, and in fact they are quite aggravating to a lot of us. You are simply not equipped to "connect with a vegan community" until you have done your basic due dilligence.
  !veganism@lemmy.ca is here to cater to vegans, not people who are curious about vegans and want to interrogate them about things that they could much more easily discover from the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article. Differentiating communities is useful.
  If you want to keep harming animals, then "vegans were mean to me" will sound like a reasonable justification to do that.

What are your thoughts?
I think the question is banal. Either that you haven't explained enough context to understand the question.

43 comments