From: g9rwaigh@cdf.toronto.edu (Rosemary Waigh)
Subject: Better to be slaughtered than never to have lived? Re: Meat eaters (LONG)
Keywords: Meat Vegans vegetarian food
Organization: University of Toronto Computing Disciplines Facility
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 17:26:03 GMT

In article <schuck.724481107@sfu.ca> Bruce_Schuck@sfu.ca writes:
>Thats an interesting point. If everyone gave up eating beef tomorrow,
>all the beef farmers/ranchers would kill their herd off within a
>matter of days because they aren't into keeping cattle as pets.
>
No, if everyone became an ethical vegetarians, including the farmers, they 
would set up sanctuaries for the remaining cattle to live out their lives in 
peace.  Of course this is not going to happen.  What might happen is that the 
demand for meat would decline, fewer people would decide to become farmers, as 
the older farmers retired they would not be replaced, fewer animals would be 
bred.

>I ask the vegetarians out there:
>
>Is it better to have never lived at all, never to have chewed grass

Never to have been fed poultry manure ("[W]ays to utilize poultry manure
[Dr Ed Naber] listed as ... as ruminant feed, primarily using as broiler feed,
a process that is fairly common in the southern states ... composting ... for
use as a feed ingredient for ruminants."  "Manure Utilization", _Canada_
_Poultryman_, August 1992).

"[On feedlots] the animals are fed a diet designed for one purpose only--to
fatten them up as cheaply as possible.  This may include such delicacies as
sawdust laced with ammonia and feathers, shredded newspaper (complete with all
the colors of toxic ink from the Sunday comics and advertising circulars),
'plastic hay,' processed sewage, inedible tallow and grease, poultry litter,
cement dust, and cardboard scraps, not to mention the insecticides, antibiotics
and hormones.  Artifical flavors and aromas are added to trick the poor animals
into eating the stuff." (_Diet_for_a_new_America_ by John Robbins).

>and dropped cow patties all over the place under a clear blue sky,

"poultry, pigs or calves never see the light of day until they are taken to 
the slaughterhouse... For three months at a stretch, pregnant sows are confined
to stalls scarcely larger than their bodies.  To reduce stress and activity, 
totally confined animals are kept in darkness except at feeding time...
"The new ways are solidly established.  About 95 per cent of egg laying hens,
virtually all ... turkeys and half or more of beef cattle, dairy cows and pigs
are maintained in some type of factory system."  (James B. Mason, "Industrial
Pigs, Mechanical Chickens:  How Corporate Animal Factories Breed Poisoned Meat
and New Pollution", _Vegetarian_Times_, March 1980, cited in Victoria Moran,
_Compassion:_The_Ultimate_Ethic_).

>never to have got it on with another cow/bull, 

Never to have served on a rape rack, never to have been artifically
inseminated...

>never sucked milk from it's mothers teat, 

"...today almost no dairy cow is permitted to suckle her calf for more than
three days, if that long.  According to the 1965 report of the Brambell 
Committee, a British governmental commission which conducted extensive
research into animal treatment in the UK, 'Separating the calf from the mother
shortly after birth undoubtedly inflicts anguish on both.  Cattle are highly
intelligent, and attachment between the calf and the mother is particularly
strong.' ... [some] calves go on to white veal units where their fourteen-
week lives are spent confined to wooden crates or stalls 1 foot 10 inches wide
and 4 feet 6 inches long.  They are fed a liquid diet deficient in iron and
certain vitamins to promote the desirable paleness of flesh."

>never ran as fast as a cows four legs can run,

"[T]oday's cattle are routinely de-horned because today's cattle feedlots, where
the great majority of today's cattle spend the last half of their lives, are
unbelievably overcrowded.  And they are not likely to become less crowded in
the foreseeable future.  ... Studies at the University of Minnesota suggest
maximum profits can be obtained by allowing each of these large animals 
fourteen square feet of living space.  To realize what this means, consider 
that a typical 12' x 15' bedroom is 180 square feet.  Imagine thirteen half
ton steers in your bedroom and you've got the picture." (_Diet_for_a_new_
_America_ by John Robbins.)

>and never been born,
>
Never to have been castrated:
"I hate castrating them.  It's really horrible.  After you put the ring on its
scrotum the calf will lie down and kick and wring its tail for half and hour or
more, before the scrotum finally goes numb.  It's obviously in agony.  Then it
takes about a month before its balls fall off.  You can do it faster with a
special kind of pliers, but I can't bear to use those because I can't take how
they carry on." - cattleman Herb Silverman, quoted in _Diet_for_a_new_America_
by John Robbins.

>or is it better to have done all those things, and more , even in a
>shortened life and end up as a steak on my plate?

I submit to you that the conditions you describe are not typical of the
average cow's life.
Even if their lives were that idyllic, it does not justify killing them.  Which
do you think is more humane - for my husband and I to try to avoid unwanted
pregnancies, or to have a large number of kids and kill them when they reach
a certain age?

>I ask those questions, because thats the choice, there is no inbetween.
>Or, in a shortened version: 
>Is it better to have lived and lost , ending up as
>steak tartare , than to have never lived at all?

Better to have never lived than to live the kind of life led by livestock on
farms and then killed.
-- 
Rosemary Waigh             Undergraduate, Computer Science / Linguistics
g9rwaigh@cdf.utoronto.ca   University of Toronto
	"Looking at the Earth from afar you realize it is too small
	for conflict and just big enough for co-operation."  Yuri Gagarin
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