What if

Disclaimer: I am not racist. I mean no offence to any readers. But discrimination should not be supported in any form; you can't say that one type is acceptable (speciesism) and another (racism) is not.

An ad for formula in some junk mail the other day got me thinking (the formula was listed as casein-based).
What if we decided that the mammary secretions of a species entirely separate to our own was not cutting it nutritionally? That if our children needed to be formula-fed, then it should at least be as nutritionally sound as their own mother's breastmilk? And what if we decided that in order to get that formula, we'd target helpless inhabitants of refugee camps in war-torn African countries and mechanically rape and impregnate all women of child-bearing age? We'd look after them and feed them while they were gestating for nine long months, while they were preparing mentally and emotionally for the arrival of their child. And what if, once the child was born, we tore the newborn away from his mother, ignoring her protests and her grief, ignoring the baby's confusion and suffering? What if we took the milk that was destined for that little baby and we collected it from the mother, pasteurised and dehydrated it and used it to make formula for Western babies? What if we murdered the male babies and kept the little girls captive so that they could grow up and be routinely mechanically raped and contribute their own milk once they came of child-bearing age? And what if we kept their mothers imprisoned and constantly bearing children she wasn't allowed to hold until she was no longer able to produce adequately profitable amounts of milk, at which point, at best, we'd leave her to her poverty.

And mothers in first-world countries could breathe sighs of relief that despite not breastfeeding for whatever reason, at least their children were able to be raised to be big and strong on nutrient-full human milk. "Thank goodness for formula", they'd say.

What if?

Thank god for milk.