This may be a controversial post because it strays from the exploitation of non-human animals, but this is a story about human bodies being sold and used without their prior consent, which to me speaks to a similar (albeit more severe) indignity that non-human animals face in the medical industry. That is to say “this isn’t vegan”. Feel free to downvote this post heavily and say as much in the comments if you feel this isn’t on-topic for this community, as I know there are plenty of other places that will address this with an appropriate level of appallment.
the barest definition of “exploit” is “use”. using animal products is the exact thing vegans don’t do.
This is the definition I always use concerning veganism. As soon as we get a benefit from something, we become biased. We lie to ourselves. Every vegan here can remember a whole lifetime of lying to ourselves. If someone still trusts themself to distinguish which forms of exploitation are “beneficial” to the animal being exploited, they haven’t learned a damn thing yet.
we can agree on some things!
I’d argue it’s vegan to use animal products if and only if the animal has died through no means of your own and you are not indirectly causing more exploitation.
Second hand leather is not vegan because you indirectly support the leather industry by fueling demand for leather. Someone may be more inclined to purchase something made of leather if they know they can resell it at a later date (like a leather sofa).
However, I’d argue eating roadkill you accidentally killed yourself would qualify as vegan since there are no moral issues with that - consuming it doesn’t fuel the demand for animal exploitation. Additionally, it causes you to consume less food produced through industrial agriculture (which is not sustainable in its current form), making kt better for the environment.
For me, exploitation := intentionally harming an animal as a means to an end
your personal definition is not widely used enough to make it into a lexicon.
I am not sure about exact definitions.
But afaik vegans dont finance or encourage animal “use”. Like buying, buying for a lower price, eating in front of other people thus normalizing it etc.
This doesnt apply at all in this case. There are no people (well, anymore) killing others to get medicinal corpses. So you dont normalize anything and you also dont fuel any market.
I mean, we have laws for that. On a free market this could increase the demand and people could start killing people to sell them.
nor participate
If you participate, you encourage.
so you can see that it is not vegan
Did you read my comment? (The one above)
yea. it seems like you are holding two contradictory ideas at once. I hope you can resolve that
I would say exploit is getting a benefit from someone without giving anything back.
This is a corpse, it doesnt feel, you cant give it anything. As far as we know.
You can bury it but this is really just a concern of the relatives etc.
It’s also just living people that care about what happens with their body. My guess: this is a egoistic response, which is understandable, but makes no sense when you are dead.
Simply because we cannot imagine how it is to be dead.
That would be a point against opt-in.