Do you swat mosquitoes? Then you're a hypocrite.

The objection

“You kill insects every time you walk, drive or swat a mosquito. You’re no different from me, you just draw your line somewhere convenient and pretend it’s principled.”

The answer

This is a trap built on a false definition. Veganism has never claimed to achieve zero harm. The Vegan Society’s own definition is the avoidance of animal exploitation and cruelty “as far as is possible and practicable”, a direction of travel rather than a vow of impossible purity. So “you can’t avoid all harm” doesn’t rebut the position; it’s already baked into it.

Now look at the two cases you’re equating. Swatting a mosquito that’s biting you is self-defence. Ordering bacon is a planned purchase that funds the breeding, confinement and killing of an animal you don’t need to eat. One is an unavoidable, instantaneous response to being harmed. Intent, necessity and scale all differ. Pretending these are the same act is like saying that because a surgeon and a stabber both use a knife, there’s no moral difference between them.

There’s also an honest point about the insect itself. The scientific confidence that a mosquito suffers is far lower than the confidence that a pig or a cow does. Sentience runs on a gradient, and we owe the strongest protection where the evidence is strongest. Uncertainty about the insect tells you nothing about the cow you’re certain can suffer.

So the charge of hypocrisy collapses into its opposite. Caring imperfectly about everything still beats caring about nothing, and “you can’t be perfect” has never been a licence to stop trying. Reducing the harm you cause from “as much as possible” to “as little as practicable” is the entire project, not a contradiction of it.