New York Times editorial: Million-Dollar Meat -A More Compassionate View

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/opinion/23wed4.html?_r=1 & ref=opinion & oref=slog\

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April 23, 2008

EDITORIAL

Million-Dollar Meat

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is offering a

million-dollar prize for the " first person to come up with a method

to produce commercially viable quantities of in vitro meat at

competitive prices by 2012. " " In vitro " and " test-tube grown " are not

ideas one usually associates with meat. The meat-substitute niche is

currently occupied largely by soy in all its miraculous if slightly

disappointing forms.

The announcement has apparently caused strife in PETA's offices,

where workers are debating whether they might ever eat animal tissue

that has never been part of an autonomous animal. They'll have some

time to decide. So far, only a small amount of meat tissue has been

grown in petri dishes - and it remains to be seen whether consumers

will ever like the idea.

We are disgusted by the conventional meat industry in this country,

which raises animals - especially chicken and pigs - in inhumane

confinement systems that cause significant environmental damage.

There is every reason to change the way meat is produced, to make it

more ethical, more humane. But the result of the technology that PETA

hopes to reward could be the end of domesticated farm animals. This

has often seemed as if it were the logical conclusion of some radical

animal-rights activists: better for animals not to exist at all if

there is a chance that they would suffer.

We prefer a more measured approach. Ensure the least possible cruelty

to animals, by all means, and raise them in ways that are both

ethical and environmentally sound. But also treasure the cultural and

historical bond between humans and domesticated animals. Historically

speaking, they exist only because of the uses we have found for them,

and preserving their existence means, in most cases, preserving the

uses we have made for them. It will be a barren world if the herds

and flocks disappear in favor of meat grown in a laboratory tank.

 

--

Kim Bartlett, President of Animal People, Inc.

Postal mailing address: P.O. Box 960, Clinton WA 98236 U.S.A.

email <ANPEOPLE web-site: http://www.animalpeoplenews.org/