Why I don't eat meat

In 4th grade I made the decision to become vegetarian, so I've been following this diet for 7 year now. I had a bestfriend at the time who was also vegetarian and she started showing me all these video of how they kill the animals for the food, I use to eat. I started feeling guilty and terrible to eat these animals. I looked more into it, and what I found was honestly just so shocking to me. 

I am the only person in my house who is vegetarian, so it wasn't like I was following in the footsteps of a family member, it was a decision I chose to make myself and  because it corresponds with my beliefs and ideologies and view on the world and on life. We wouldn't kill a person for meat, but why is it okay that in some countries they eat dog, monkey brain or even the simplest such as the leg of a chicken? If human life is so valued, then why are animal lives so devalued?

I to this day stand by my decision of not only being vegetarian but my views which still remain the same, which is that animals should not be killed for food.

Many questions I have been ask through non-vegetarians are:

What about protein?
I still can get my protein through Tofu, broccoli and various other supplements, meat is not the only option.

Is it difficult?
Surprisingly, no it is not, many restaurants have a special logo on the menu and if there is no vegetarian option, servers are more than happy toto solve something for you.

Is anyone else in your family vegetarian?
No, but they understand my choice and respect it.

Do you miss meat?
I do not but that is because I have no clue of what it tastes like and at first it may be hard but soon after you get used to it very quickly.

TOK

In class we talked and discussed animal rights and some knowledge questions Mr Thomas presented to us. 

To what extent do animals have rights?

This question caused quite a bit of spark with the class but personally, I think animals don't have enough rights. First, there are multiple slaughterhouses, shelters for badly treated animals and this is all because of the cause of humans. However, we do have many laws to protect the animals, such as the types of domestic animals one can own, the volunteer vets that work with the endangered species. However, I do think this is only because humans feel responsible for the killings. We are the cause of the global climate change that's killed hundreds of Polar Bears in Antarctica, or the ones that hunt them for their skin and fur to make furniture and clothes. We humans think of our need primary and as these animals have no way of communicating with us when is it that we really know we are doing our best to give the animals the rights they need.  

How should we determine the proper treatment of animals?

This question n a way is similar to the above one, because there are so many sides and ways of looking at it (which is what a knowledge question is to allow us to do). However, this differs because it talks about a certain criteria. The other day in class we look at the Human Index, and discussed how do we come up with this criteria. However we base it of the needs of the animals, the way they live, the supplies, sources and protection they get. In determining this I feel like we would only know we had done an accurate way of testing our hypothesis if we see a population growth or decrease in a certain species in a controlled environment, however using different variable to test this.

How should we determine our obligations to animals?

This seems to be one of the harder questions to give one response to because every animal has different needs. However I think we would have to determine our obligations to them based on their way of living and how their species wants and needs to grow. We need to ensure that whatever we do to the animals it must not be harmful and must correspond to their natural way of being and behaving. Lastly, we need to keep in consideration that we must keep them secure and avoid them from getting extinct.

How should we determine which animals we take into consideration?

We ourselves are animals, therefore we primarily need to focus on the animals that balance our ecosystem such as bees or shard, because if not we as a species can go extinct. However the same way we take care of the main life suppliers, we need to take care of all animals and I believe we should not rank them rather each animals should have the care provided with the one they need.

What ethical issues are involved in eating meat?

I wrote about this TOK Knowledge question in my rgument to why I'm vegetarian.