Lee Kuan Yew’s daughter, Lee Wei Ling, is in a bind.
She considers dolphins to be “celebrity” animals with a lot of people rallying in protest against their capture for exhibition by Resorts World Sentosa.
She then wonders what makes dolphins more worthy of sympathy given that there are other “non-celebrity” animals that are subjected to cruel treatments without protest?
So, she recounted an incident about how she met a Jewish psychologist in the US. He was a vegetarian. He avoided meat but ate scallops.
She found it odd, and later discovered that he ate scallops because he felt no empathy for them. Unlike dolphins, scallops are not cute.
Following which, she also questions if Singaporeans who eat meat are aware of the cruel conditions of rearing and slaughtering animals for food.
She contends that farmed animals killed for dietary purposes suffer more than laboratory animals killed in the name of medical science as established ethics mandates that animals killed in laboratories are euthanised in the absence of other animals in the laboratory.
This makes animals that are awaiting slaughter less terrified.
So she cannot understand why are people protesting against the cruelty against laboratory animals and not against slaughterhouse animals.
But that’s not all.
She is aware that two of the 27 wild-caught dolphins from the Solomon Islands destined for Resorts World Sentosa have died in captivity.
In her mind, she thinks this practice is cruel but these dolphins caught for exhibition should not be released back to the wild again as they might have lost their survival skills and might be attacked by sharks or drown in rubbish dumped into oceans by men.
They, therefore, should be kept in captivity since these dolphins can make RWS some money.
However, she also objects to killing sharks for their fin as this causes sharks suffering.
Hence, she confesses to being hypocritical for condemning cruelty to animals and yet still eating meat.
So what’s her problem? She cannot survive with a diet free of meat and eggs and finds being a vegan unpalatable after a few days.
She also dreams of a future where meat can be reared painlessly in cell culture for dietary and medical needs.
For now she will remain an embarrassed omnivore.
Lee Wei Ling is the daughter of His Leeness, Lee Kuan Yew.
