Give ‘babe’ some wriggle room

You lose nothing by doing this. It is not as if in this gluttonous society there is a shortage of other food options. You gain much. You get to participate in a movement that will significantly reduce the amount of net suffering in the world.

Until pig farmers stop the use of sow stalls and other forms of senseless animal brutality, as a community we will continue to remain camped somewhere near the base of the moral mountain.

Like the pigs, we have no wriggle room on this front. There is no scope for debating the morality of cruel animal factory practices. They are unquestionably morally repugnant. While animals can’t speak in ways that we understand and their intellect is lacking, they are entitled to be treated with concern because they possess the most important attribute that qualifies an entity for moral standing: the capacity to feel pain and hence suffer in identical ways to humans.

A life full of misery, pain and deprivation for sentient beings in order that humans can feast on their flesh for arguably a few cents less: rarely have the benefits and burdens scales been so heavily tilted against a wide-ranging social practice. It’s time to correct the balance. Before you order your next meal, reflect (if only for an instant) about how the meal came to be.