If you believe that animals have moral value and possess moral rights, you don’t support killing animals. Period. You don’t say that killing 2 is okay to save 10 anymore than you would say that it’s okay to use 2 humans as forced organ donors to save 10 humans.
That’s an easy question. The answer is: Absolutely not.
The reason is simple: cultured meat involves taking cells from living
animals; it also involves growing those cells in an animal medium, such as
fetal serum from calves or horses. So animals are killed in the process of
producing cultured meat.
If you believe that animals have moral value and possess moral rights, you
don’t support killing animals. Period. You don’t say that killing 2 is okay
to save 10 anymore than you would say that it’s okay to use 2 humans as
forced organ donors to save 10 humans.
What about the argument that this technology would provide meat for the
billions of people who want to continue to eat meat, and would involve the
slaughter of fewer animals?
Apart from the fact that animal rights advocates do not promote killing
animals, there are already many 100% plant-based meat substitutes–and there
are more being developed every day. So if people want the sensation of
eating something corpse-like, they already have many options that do not
involve killing animals There is no reason to believe that cultured meat
will have any greater success or social acceptance than 100% plant-based
products do.
But let me reiterate a point I made earlier: animal rights advocates do not
promote killing some animals to (supposedly) save more animals any more than
a human rights advocate does not promote commodifying some humans in order
to save a larger number of humans.
What about the argument that animal rights advocates should stop being
“binary” (i.e., all or nothing). That is, they should put aside their rights
convictions and support “cultured” meat because it will supposedly save
animal lives (but will still involve killing animals as sources of cells and
culture medium). That argument is transparently speciesist. We would never
advocate making those trade-offs were humans involved.
Those who advocate animal rights should keep educating everyone they can
about veganism as a matter of justice. That will change the world. Animal
rights advocates should never promote or support any form of animal
exploitation just as human rights advocates would never promote commodifying
and killing some humans in order to save others.
I recognize that there are some “animal people” who are very excited about
cultured meat and are investing money or other resources in it. I could not
disagree more with them.
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If you are not vegan, please go vegan. Veganism is about nonviolence. First
and foremost, it’s about nonviolence to other sentient beings. But it’s also
about nonviolence to the earth and nonviolence to yourself.
If animals matter morally, veganism is not an option — it is a necessity.
Anything that claims to be an animal rights movement must make clear that
veganism is a moral imperative.
Embracing veganism as a moral imperative and advocating for veganism as a
moral imperative are, along with caring for nonhuman refugees, the most
important acts of activism that you can undertake. Never fall for the line
that we need to exploit animals in order to stop animal exploitation. That
is absurd.
The World is Vegan! If you want it.
Number of animals killed in the world by the fishing, meat, dairy and egg industries, since you opened this webpage.
0 marine animals
0 chickens
0 ducks
0 pigs
0 rabbits
0 turkeys
0 geese
0 sheep
0 goats
0 cows / calves
0 rodents
0 pigeons/other birds
0 buffaloes
0 dogs
0 cats
0 horses
0 donkeys and mules
0 camels / camelids