“Neuter your ex” campaigns popped up across the country this year, from Maryland to Michigan to Washington state. Getting back at an ex can now mean neutering or spaying a cat because “some things shouldn’t breed,” as one New Jersey animal shelter put it.
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The non-human animals aren’t in a position where consent (or lack thereof) can be accounted for. They aren’t neurologically able to comprehend the consequences of their activities or the detriment it brings about when they follow their instincts. They also don’t comprehend that the operation will make parenthood impossible, so they’re not left to suffer from any mental trauma or sense of loss afterwards.
And if all that isn’t enough, there just isn’t a viable alternative for controlling the domestic animal population: We can’t educate the animals to let them make informed decisions. We can’t get them to use contraceptives. We can’t convince or trick them to stop having sex. We also don’t have the means to keep them all contained, and in any case that would be far more detrimental to their mental and emotional health than being neutered.
I agree with that, but it made me ponder that many people don’t really comprehend the consequences of reproduction, especially when young.
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Violence implies that harm is happening. In mind, the most harmful thing about neutering a human without their consent is the subsequent trauma that the person needs to live the rest of their life knowing that they will not be able to reproduce. Non-human animals don’t carry that burden and therefore won’t experience that trauma. They can go about the rest of their lives in perfectly happy ignorance.
The physical aspect of the operation is a negligible concern. They recover from that just fine. Animals of all kinds need to undergo surgical operations for many reasons, and it’s not considered violence.
As for humans with severe hereditary genetic disorders, I personally think they should consider making a choice to not reproduce. If parenthood is something important to them and they’re qualified to be a parent, they should consider adopting. I have no inheritable genetic issues myself but I’m still of the mind that I should choose to adopt instead of giving birth even though there is a part of me that wants to have a biological child very badly. But I need to consider what’s good for humanity as a whole, and too many humans on this planet is not good, so I believe I should avoid contributing to that problem.
So the difference is, a human can be reasoned with and make their own decision. Whether or not people ordinarily do make reasoned decisions about important matters is another concern; the salient point is that they can.
I’m not going to force a person to make the decision that I personally think is right, but at least an attempt can be made. With non-human animals we can’t even make that attempt. And when it comes to people whose mental faculties are so severely limited that they can’t comprehend the situation they’re in, that kind of person is obviously not fit for parenthood and likely can’t function independently. At that point I hope their caretaker will make sure that they aren’t exposed to opportunities for unintentional childbirth.
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I intentionally avoided making any reference specifically to Down’s syndrome because I’ve known people with Down’s syndrome who are high functioning and independent, but I’ve also known people with Down’s syndrome who can’t get their own pants on without assistance (I mean this literally and objectively as a reference point for cognitive function, not as a joke).
So I’m not going to suggest that all people with Down’s syndrome should be actively prevented from birthing children. But I think anyone with a hereditary disorder that severely affects quality of life should be carefully and empathetically counseled through the question of procreation with an honest discussion of the risks involved. Someone with high functioning Down’s syndrome may be able to live a perfectly happy life without much assistance, but what kind of risk would they be putting on their prospective child who will have a high likelihood of also getting the syndrome and may have a much worse case of it?
I don’t believe in forced sterilization or forced prevention, and I don’t believe in selecting for genes based on race or “positive” qualities, so what I’m suggesting is not eugenics. It’s simply encouraging people to consider the long term consequences of their decisions and evaluate the risks they are placing on other people (their prospective children) who cannot consent to being born under those risks.
As for individuals with cognitive faculties that are too limited to make any assessment about those risks, they will not be living independently, so I hope their caretaker would not put them in a situation where procreation is a concern to begin with.
And going back to the original matter of non-human animals, I stand by my point that those animals won’t be burdened by the knowledge that they can no longer procreate so they won’t have any long lasting trauma from the operation. That combined with the importance of reducing unhoused dog and cat populations (which are extremely difficult to control because of how quickly they reproduce) makes the value judgment on this matter a very easy one for me.
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I’m curious, do you have first hand experience with dogs before and after being neutered?
My father-in-law has three pedigree (blech) dogs, each one a different breed, one boy and two girls, who he refuses to neuter because he likes the idea of being able to breed them with other pedigree dogs and sell the puppies or give them to family.
Wait no sorry he HAD three dogs until the male started raping the females. That created a new generation of dogs in his household, and then the brothers started raping the sisters creating another generation. Now my FIL puts chastity belts on all the dogs, but that still didn’t stop another litter from showing up.
Even though he’s given away more than half the litter he still has 8 frenzied dogs occupying his household. The girls attack each other when they’re in heat, the boys fight each other and try to rape the girls even though they’re all wearing chastity belts so it just ends up being impotent acts of violence against each other. His house is a hellscape of barking and fighting but he still refuses to neuter because he has some ridiculous notions about God’s plan and procreation being sacred, even as he tries to prevent them from procreating using physical restraints.
In my own home I have two neutered rescue dogs, both mongrels, one male and one female. They don’t fight and the male never tries to rape the female. They’re very high anxiety dogs because of trauma in their early lives, but they’re calm at home with each other as long as no one rings the doorbell. The worst thing my male dog has ever tried to do to my female dog is aggressively sniff and lick her genitals, but we stop that whenever it starts up because that carries high risk of a yeast infection for her.
I don’t bring my dogs to the dog park anymore because too many assholes with large breed dogs that they refuse to neuter are unleashing their dogs there, and those big unneutered male dogs like to try raping my male dog. There’s no question that it’s rape because he tries to escape them, but these big dogs all swarm him and hump him like he’s a female. I’ve had to clean dog cum off of him before.
Now my male dog is traumatized and scared of larger male dogs by default, which is frustrating because there are some large male dogs in our neighborhood who are nice and would make good friends but my male dog is too scared to give them a chance.
So basically, I don’t really care about the semantic argument around whether or not neutering can qualify as sexual assault or sexual violence. Those terms imply harmful intent and/or harmful outcomes for the victim, and my personal experience tells me that there’s far more harm done by leaving dogs unneutered. I don’t believe in arguments about what’s “natural” because it’s part of human nature to manipulate our environment, and that manipulation can have positive or negative effects. We should judge the merit of our choices based on those effects. Letting nature run its course is not inherently virtuous.
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Why can’t we give them the pill contraceptive? Does progesterone not work on animals, or are pet owners just sadists that love mutilating their pets?
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I see you’ve never met a cat before
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Pets don’t like taking pills, so it’s probably more harmful to force them to do so than to do a one time surgery. Also, that only works on female cats, so your male cat could still father kittens.
We have two cats from the same litter (got from neighbor for free, they still get to see their mother and original human family on occasion), one male and one female, and we got them spayed and neutered. It was horrible watching them suffer for a couple weeks, but I think it’ll be better than force feeding the girl birth control and preventing the boy from ever interacting with a female cat. I don’t know if cats do incest, but I absolutely do not want that to happen either, so the girl cat going into heat (not sure if they still do if using birth control) and not be able to get that particular itch scratched, except by her brother.
So I think it makes complete sense to sterilize cats. They can’t consent on their own, so owners need to make that decision for them, just like with surgeries for children under the age of legal consent.
I take it you are also for FGM then as
Wow, that’s… quite the leap.
It’s merely what you said. If you want to rephrase your original statement when you said parents have the right to force any surgery on their children, I’d be glad.
But it’s not. I said parents have the obligation to decide what surgeries their children need.
For example with tonsilitis, a parent could agree to a tonsillectomy or choose to treat symptoms until they can decide for themselves. Or on another end of the spectrum, allow or disallow gender affirming surgeries before they’re of legal age.
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