The below email dialogue with a fellow reader is about the ethics of neutering cats to prevent the multiplication of strays, which might lead to their culling by animal control authorities. She is for the neutering of cats, but was posed some tricky questions by other Buddhists. (She keeps two vegan cats, one a stray and the other rescued from the pound.)
Q: Doesn’t sterilising (neutering) cats create negative karma?
A: No – if the intention is not to harm but to save them. Karma is created by our intentions – negative karma by negative intentions; positive karma by positive intentions. It is worth noting that even a household cat might become a stray if it runs away or gets lost. If a cat-owner has no intention or ability to care for potential offsprings of his or her cat, neutering should be considered.
Q: If the surgery causes pain, doesn’t this create negative karma?
A: The pain in neutering surgery is taken care of by anesthetics, while the pain during recovery is short-lived and incidental, for the cats’ own safety in future (from being caught and culled as troublesome strays.)
Q: If cats don’t wish to be castrated, doesn’t this create negative karma?
A: Indeed, no animal would want to be castrated. But more so do they not want to be culled due to not being castrated.
Q: Wouldn’t neutering cats create the karma of having no offsprings of our own?
A: No, since what created is the karma to save. One creates the karmic potential to be saved from being killed instead. If one neuters another with the gleefully evil intention to prevent the next generation from being born, so as to cause suffering somehow (which is different from the good intention of preventing culling), one would then create the karmic potential to not have offsprings.
Q: It disturbs me that cats are unwilling to be castrated.
A: Cats probably would not endorse being neutered if they could speak, but they would consent if they could comprehend the bleak reality that they are likely to be culled if not neutered. Neither would they want their many potential offsprings to be culled. Just as kids who don’t understand the purpose of taking bitter medicine are ‘forced’ to do so anyway, likewise, cats who don’t understand our good intentions are still better off neutered. Kids might not know any better due to lack of maturity, but the cats know even less.
Q: Does neutering interfere with nature’s evolution?
A: It would seem so, to some extent, but it’s for the greater good of the cats. To not support neutering; to passively allow continual proliferation and mass-culling is to endorse even more destructive interference with nature, with the rights of the cats to live out their lives naturally. To passively allow culling is to allow others to interfere with cats’ lives in the worst way possible. Neutering is pro-life, not pro-death; as neutering is not abortion, but to prevent deaths. The truth is, humans are already interfering with nature in many other worse ways – via domestication of animals, pollution, breeding and eating of animals… We are all factors in nature; we are part of nature. Everything we do or not do affects the interdependent web of life. If we function with greater compassion and wisdom, we benefit nature on the whole.
Q: Doesn’t letting a cat be culled cause more negative karma than neutering it?
A: Yes, the negative karma and hatred created when countless cats are killed is worse than neutering some cats, which if done with right intentions, creates no negative karma at all; and only good karma. Mass killing of animals is one of the potential collective karmic causes of conflict and wars in our world – when the animals are reborn as humans in future lives, when they encounter those who killed them.
Q: It seems that humans are the main culprits of the stray cat poliferation problem?
A: Yes, humans are the major culprits in disrupting the environment. But karmically speaking for the cat issue, it’s two–way too. That is to say, the cats too created karma to face their current problems. However, we should not be passive about this – as karma is always dynamic, and we can create karma that changes the paths of our past karmic potential. The karma of the cats can change too, and each cat has different karma. Who is there to say all strays karmically deserve to be culled? No one – just like no humans would like to imagine they deserve to be killed when they over-populate.
Humans probably should had not domesticated any animals in the first place. From domestication arise problems like animal imprisonment, torture, exploitation by breeding for profit, proliferation of strays, culling… In the Bodhisattva precepts in the Brahma Net Sutra, keeping pets is generally considered not a Bodhisattva practice… unless it is the taking care of strays and the injured, who would otherwise suffer out there. But of course, if you already have domesticated pets, you should care for them for the natural span of their lives best you can.
Related Articles:
Puppy Love of Pets
http://moonpointer.com/index.php?itemid=2622
Real Animal Welfare
http://moonpointer.com/index.php?itemid=2294
Prison of Domestication
http://moonpointer.com/index.php?itemid=917
Neutering to Extinction?
http://moonpointer.com/index.php?itemid=1483
I’m rather disturbed that the answers come with such a determined voice. It gives people the sense that by neutering cats one is playing the role of a great saviour. I think ultimately we must accept whatever kamma that comes with our actions, and we can only try our best to help, without ever being 100% certain that what we are doing is right. I think this is a very gray area and while I salute volunteers who bring cats for neutering, I think we should not think of ourselves as omnipotent beings and everything else as children that needs to be helped. that is not the way of the buddha and sounds more like another religion to me.
If it’s a case of be neutered or be killed, think there’s little room for hesitation. Unless there is a better solution, neutering still seems the most sensible way to prevent deaths 8/
Even if we cannot be 100% sure that the outcome of what we do will be alright for all parties involved, we can be 100% sure that our intention for doing what we do is right. All we can be 100% sure of in life is our intention. And from intention springs forth karma.
I don’t think the above speaks of anyone being a great or omnipotent saviour. The real “salvation” would be to enlighten the cullers, the cats and those who passively let cats be culled. Humans created the mess of domestication and culling, so it is up to ALL humans together to save the day.
I support Mayhem’s comments. Reality, and life, is much more complex than just a simple “right” or “wrong”. We can only try our best to help, without 100% sure certain of what we are doing is absolutely correct. The moment we think that what we do is absolutely correct, it implies that we have a “bigger stick” than anyone else, and that itself already implies conflict. As for those who think that as long as our intentions are right,and that justifies the actions, pls think again. The Crusaders thought that what they did were “right”. The Jihadists also thought what they did were “right”. And I”m sure those who support the neuturing of cats also thought that their intentions were “right”, just as those who don’t support it also have their own intentions and reasons. And of course they too, will also feel that their intentions were “right”.
The neutering of cats here is not THAT complex. If you see a stray and you care, should you save it by neutering, or let it risk its life to be culled, and to have its offsprings culled? Choose. Not choosing is a choice too.
Nothing about “religious” terrorists here. Nothing about bigger or smaller stick. Culling is definitely the wrong stick, while being passive to culling is not the right “non-stick” to hold either.
ALL we can be sure of is our intentions. Of course, we should work to increase our compassion and wisdom too – to make better decisions. But even so, as we cannot be 100% sure of the consequences of our intentional in/actions. All we can be sure of is that what motivates us to do or not do something is based on the 100% intention to help.
This “100% sure” mentality of one’s supposed right intention is dangerous.
I think no one really say neutering is absolutely right but IT IS the best solution, so far. And that is to save the cats from being killed. Simply because there’s no better alternative right now. As much as those who support neutering think they have the “right” intention, those that don’t also think they have “right” intention, so who is really having the “right” intention? Like the author said, to prevent culling of cats, neutering is still the best option… and until we find a better solution. I don’t think it’s an issue of who is a great saviour nor is it a ego trip. :straight:
Why sterilisation of strays makes sense…
(From http://www.catwelfare.org/page/id/30#G02 ) –
We feel that only by tackling the root cause of cats being killed every year can we stop the problem – and that is that there are too many cats breeding.
13,000 cats are killed a year – that works out to 35 healthy cats a day. To keep that number down, the number of cats born has to be reduced drastically.
To put it simply, the fewer cats born, the fewer cats have to suffer and die.
I guess we would need a Bodhisattva to donate a plot of land when he or she can to gather all the stray cats in the street and take care of them. In that way, the stray cats need not have to be neutered, and can be allowed to breed naturally and live out their lives. But do bear in mind cats multiply rapidly… 4-5 kittens (so I’ve heard) a year per mother cat, not a small number. 😮
While I understand Mayhem’s concerns about “determined voice”, unfortunately we do sometimes have to make a definite choice about certain issues. That doesn’t mean we see ourselves as the animals’ saviour, perhaps it’s more about weighing up the consequences and doing the best you can? If we could get birth control products into cat food, for example, perhaps that would be better but it wouldn’t help the wilder or more neglected cats who aren’t fed it!
To sit on the fence (and I’m not suggesting s/he does that or advocates that!) can cause more harm than being active. I’ve not worked in an animal shelter but I have friends who do and they have seen many, many unwanted animals and also many cats worn out by having litter after litter. Indeed, I work with a lot of animal activists – very caring people who are not species-centric and who genuinely care about other beings. They overwhelmingly believe in neutering programmes for domestic animals because of what they have seen in their work (paid or voluntary).
Also, I don’t think we can underestimate the pain animals feel when their kittens/puppies are destroyed because they are unwanted by humans… As someone else has said, unnaturally large cat/dog populations as we have now are the fault of humans but we have to find some solution. It”s not just the cats, either – too many means a reduction in wild birds and other creatures, as the balance of predator and prey is distorted. Castration of males is far less traumatic an operation for males than speying females, for obvious physical reasons – and hopefully if either is done when the cat is young, s/he doesn’t know what they missed! But of course we can’t know that. We humans have already upset the mythical balance of nature (if indeed it ever existed) – perhaps we just have to try our best to do the least harm and the most good. Never easy!