Becoming Vegan For Animal Rights

May 27th, 2010 by Katie Vann · Lifestyle

The year was 1998.

Titanic lit up theater
screens, the era of boy
bands was in full swing,
and teens everywhere
were logging onto
America Online to
discover a world outside
of their small town. I was
a blonde-haired, blue-
eyed, 12-year-old raised
on Wisconsin cheese,
brats, and potatoes. I
grew up around plenty of
pets—horses, rabbits,
mice, gerbils, cats, and
dogs—but these were
always held to a separate set of morals than the animals I consumed for dinner. It is sad to say that for 12
years of my life, I really did not question my food choices or ever think about becoming vegan.
However, that fact changed quickly when I was 12 simply because I stumbled upon an online newsletter
about animal rights.

The newsletter’s title was Animal Rights Online, and the newsletters were produced by a woman in the
United Kingdom named Susan. The e-mails consisted of current animal-rights articles and news stories,
poems, and quotations. It was as if a world I never knew existed was laid out before me. I read for hours
and hours about factory farming, LD50 tests, the fur industry, primate experimentation, and the cruelties so
many exploited animals endure. I indulged in quotes by Albert Einstein, Jeremy Benthram, Albert
Schweitzer, and Confucius. Poems, such as my favorite A Voice for the Voiceless, expanded my
compassion to all animals, and I no longer saw a separation between my pets and animals raised for food.

The Animal Rights Online staff who compiled the newsletters were all volunteers working remotely around
the country. It was not a registered non-profit, nor did they take donations or contributions. It was simply
people volunteering in their free time to write for a cause they believed in. Susan created Animal Rights
Online in June of 1997 because she saw the potential of the Internet to dispense unedited information. It
was a medium that could not prevent horrible factory farming photos from being released or edit out
unpleasant information about animal exploitation. It was a way that a waitress living in a town of 200 in the
middle of South Dakota could have access to the same information as an activist living in San Francisco.
The weekly newsletters ran from 1997 to 2005. To the best of my knowledge the organization no longer
exists. However, the archived newsletters may be found online (http://www.all-creatures.org/aro/nl.html).
Although the news articles and action alerts will no longer be relevant, the poems, stories, and quotes in
the newsletters are timeless. I encourage readers to visit the website and sift through the newsletters,
especially at discouraging times that come all too often in the life of an animal advocate. They will provide
motivation and remind you that you are not alone.

After reading just a few of these newsletters, I declared to my startled omnivore parents that I was going to
be a vegan. At first they assumed it was just a “phase” I was going through so they agreed I could give it a
try. After a few weeks, their concern grew, and they called my doctor for nutrition advice. Sadly, my
doctor’s advice was that it was completely absurd that my parents would allow a 12-year-old to become a
vegetarian, much less a vegan. Therefore, many arguments between my parents and myself ensued. We
finally compromised on vegetarianism. The vegetarianism lasted a few months as I gradually transitioned
into veganism by simply choosing vegan choices without technically calling myself a vegan to my parents.
That’s the thing about vegans. We’re stubborn. We don’t accept the status quo, and if we get ideas, we
follow through with them. When I decided to become a vegan, I knew it wasn’t just a 12-year-old phase but
a life-long decision I was making about my life.

I was always the only vegan (or vegetarian) in my school and probably in my whole city. When you are a
teenager, you usually just want to be like everyone else. However, the Animal Rights Online newsletter
allowed me to realize that there was a whole community of vegans out there, and although I could not eat
at Pizza Hut with my friends after school, I was in a category among the likes of Albert Einstein, Thomas
Edison, and Henry Ford, and that was ok with me.

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