In Defense of Animals recently held our monthly Carnivores Anonymous meeting on Monday, March 26, in Los Angeles, California. Our featured speaker for the month was European animal rights activist Fabienne Origer.

 Fabienne has been vegan for over 13 years and organizes the International Animal Rights Conference in Luxembourg. Fabienne shared with us that she’s always been passionate about animals and went vegetarian as a child, when her mother explained that animals must be killed to be eaten. She felt isolated in a small town of 600 people and sought out other vegan activists. She joined the only animal rights group in the country, where she learned that the dairy and egg industries are arguably worse than the meat industry. She learned that dairy cows are perpetually impregnated only to have their babies ripped away and slaughtered for veal. Male chicks, too, are violently and barbarically killed (often thrown fully conscious into grinders) on their first day on the planet as they are useless to the egg industry and don’t produce enough meat for the meat industry. When she learned this, she immediately did two things: watched Earthlings and went vegan.

 Fabienne went on to found her own animal rights group in Luxembourg, which now organizes the International Animal Rights Conference, which has attendance from over 50 different countries every year. Fabienne’s advice for our members is this, “If you have a strong enough ‘why,’ the ‘how’ will take care of itself.” She feels it’s very important that we all take the time to fully educate ourselves about animal agriculture and how it affects us, the animals and our world. She recommends the books Skinny Bitch and Eating Animals as well as the documentaries Earthlings and What the Health.

 Following Fabienne’s story, we discussed step 3 in the Carnivores Anonymous program. This step focuses on deciding to turn over our lives to our higher power. We decide to turn away from our addictive self-centered way of living and learn to surrender what we can’t control to our higher power. This way we can focus on our intention for healthy and happy living.

 Fabienne’s discussion can be viewed here.