How Lockdown Could Change Your Life Forever

Around the world right now hundreds of millions of people are at home, either through self isolation or forced quarantine.

We are living through an unprecedented situation, the everyday aspects of our life that we have always taken for granted have been taken from us, if only for the time being. And even though this will pass, living in isolation with our desire for contact, communication and connection being compromised is undeniably hard and both physically and mentally draining.

So perhaps we should use this time to reflect on whether or not we deny others the freedoms that we yearn for during this pandemic.

The freedom to see family. The freedom to see friends. The freedom to do what we want. The freedom of autonomy. The freedom of not being isolated. Of not being confined. Of not being restricted.

Perhaps we should then think of the mother pigs currently trapped inside farrowing crates and gestation crates, small metal cages so small that they are unable to turn around. Instead they can only stand up and sit down for weeks, even months at a time. Desperately biting on the bars, hoping they will one day break, but of course they never do and never will.

Or the pigs being fattened up for slaughter, kept in tiny concrete pens, with no windows, no fresh air, no sunlight. Highly intelligent beings driven to insanity, their teeth clipped out, their tails chopped off. Or the newborn calves in the dairy industry, taken from their mothers within the first 24 hours of being born and forced to spend their first months of life in solitary confinement hutches. Unable to run and play, they suckle on the bars and call out for their mothers, desperate to be nurtured and cared for, instead they are trapped and alone.

What about the egg laying hens, incarcerated in cages so small they can’t spread their wings? Forced to stand on wire mesh, their beaks sliced off. Or the free range egg laying hens, no longer in small cages, but instead one big cage where a farmer can legally house nine birds per square metre of space. The free range label nothing other than a marketing ploy in an attempt to hide their suffering.

Perhaps we should think about the chickens raised for meat, trapped inside windowless barns. Their bodies selectively bred to reach slaughter size in just six weeks. Their organs failing and limbs deformed, laid on their backs unable to move, slowly dying on the faeces filled floors. What about the animals forced to entertain us, locked in tiny enclosures endlessly pacing. Or imprisoned in swimming pools, goaded to jump through hoops and perform tricks. What of their freedom, their desire for life?

Our lives will return to normal and everything we currently miss will soon be part of our normal life again. But for those hidden away they will never have the freedom they desire. Their incarceration does not exist as a means to protect them, but instead as a means to exploit them. They bite on the bars, frantically try to escape and cry out for help, yet it is all in vain.

Imagine if from the moment you were born, somebody else had already decided to deny you everything, your autonomy, your life. Imagine if from the moment you were born someone else had already decided how long you were going to live and how you were going to die. It is times of crisis that we show how unified and interconnected we all are. We share a common fear. But we do not just share that fear with others of our own species, but others from different species as well. The fear of pain. The fear of loneliness. Our life will return to normal, our freedoms returned, our fears eased. But for tens of billions of others around the world their suffering and their fear will continue for as long as we allow it to. If freedom, connection, family and autonomy are things we want for our own lives, then what right do we have to deny those very things to others, when they too want the same for their own existence? They nurture and care. They enjoy their life. They show happiness. They enjoy socialising and family. They enjoy their autonomy. They enjoy freedom. And just as we do, they deserve their freedom. We are empathetic beings, so perhaps now in this time of our own personal isolation we should think of others, and the isolation and incarceration we force them to endure because of our choices.