A Special Mother’s Day Wish for All Cow Mothers

Anyone who knows the reality behind the dairy industry — large or small scale — knows that first and foremost, dairy is about breaking the bond between mother and child. Cows do not just “give milk,” as most people think; just like human women, cows only produce milk when they have borne a child. So first the dairy farmers must force cows to get pregnant, almost always through artificial insemination (performed to varying degrees of cruelty).

Next, farmers must take away the calves once they are born (an event that happens anywhere from a few hours to a few months following birth). With no baby to drink their milk, cows are forced to endure being hooked to machines and having their milk sucked from their bodies (while there are a few hand-milking exceptions, machines are the norm).

Mothers cry for their babies for days until they realize there’s no point in it. Then, of course, they get another chance to cry all over again because they are made pregnant months after giving birth the first time. Over and over they are raped, their babies kidnapped, and their udders ransacked for milk, until their bodies give out and they die. That is their WHOLE LIFE.

Seriously, people? This egregious cruelty is worth a bite of cheese or an ice cream cone? Particularly when dairy products are so extremely unhealthy, both in terms of high levels of bad cholesterol and also in terms of their addictive qualities? (See http://freefromharm.org/health-nutrition/addicted-to-cheese-heres-why/ for more on this claim.)

Enter the Cow Ribbon Campaign, a campaign created by Liberation BC and designed to increase both awareness about and compassion for dairy cows. Now in its third year, Liberation BC has this to say about wearing ribbons on Mother’s Day:

The cow ribbon is a symbol of your concern for these suffering and abused mothers. Please take a stand and speak out for them. Every mother deserves to know and love her children, don’t you think?

Every mother indeed — not just human mothers.

So get your cow ribbon now and wear it everywhere you go on Mother’s Day (and beyond). Explain to the people you encounter why you reject dairy products, and why, on this particular day, the hypocrisy of consuming such products is especially mind-blowing.

Here’s where you can get your ribbon:  http://cowribbon.com/get

And here’s a wonderful article about Poncho and Jasper, two cast-off calves who were rescued by Farm Sanctuary and brought to VINE almost three years ago:

http://liberationbc.org/blog/2013/04/cow-ribbon-campaign-jasper-and-ponchos-story/

Because, of course, calves are the other victims of the dairy industry: females are thrown right back into the grief-stricken cycle of one pregnancy after another to give milk as long as their bodies will stand it, and males are either raised as veal calves or else, as in the case of Poncho and Jasper, murdered outright.

Again we ask: is that milkshake really worth the cruelty it took to create it? VINE says no. What do you say?