‘Harrumph! Oh yes!’ With an expansive stretch and a shove of his chair, he grins over at me.
I look up from my book, stop munching on my toast and marmalade and stare questioningly across the table ‘What?’
‘Oh nothing. Just the editorial in the New Scientist…you should read it.’ He gets up, a maddening little smile playing over his face.
‘Hey what? You can’t just walk out. It’s obviously something good otherwise you wouldn’t be goading me!’
‘Sorry! Loads of work to do. History to make, hoverflies to catch, hedges to write about and moths to think about….Gotta go. Read it.’
‘No! What is it?’
‘Read it…must dash…’
‘Robert!’
‘Okay, okay. So what do you think about engineering animals, farm livestock, so they don’t feel pain?’
‘What! So that people can be guilt free whilst keeping them in horrific conditions?’ I exclaim. I thrust my chair away from the table. I’m shocked. ‘That’s atrocious. Despicable. Oh yes, just let’s keep factory farming and inhumane systems, after all we make billions from it, so we’ll just fiddle about with nature a bit; engineer livestock not to feel pain and that should make it all alright. Of course it does. Doesn’t it? Does it? Hell no!’ I storm around the kitchen ‘What’s with man? Why do we think we have the god given right to to to to’ I stutter I’m so angry I can get my words out ‘to ….’
‘So you think that animals should continue to suffer in intensive factory systems? You don’t think it’d be better to stop the pain? You’d rather tens of millions of animals…?
I interrupt ‘No I certainly don’t. But why fix the animals and not the system. End factory farming and you end the problem.’ I dust off my hands ‘End of story!’
‘You’ll never get rid of factory farming.’
‘So that means you compound the problem? You don’t even try? You sit back on your laurels full of smug complacency that the steak, chicken, pork chop you’re tucking into is just fine because it didn’t suffer pain whilst being farmed in the most abominable conditions? No! That’s just so wrong. Immoral.’
‘So what’s your solution then?’
What is my solution? I read the editorial. It’s well written. Very well written. The editor draws on the similarity to Douglas Adam’s novel The Restaurant At the End Of The World where Arthur Dent, the main character, is horrified when a cow-like creature is wheeled to the restaurant table, introduces itself as the dish of the day and proceeds to describe the cuts of meat available from its body. The animal has been bred to want to be eaten and to be capable of saying so.
The truth is not far behind fiction, the editorial continues, as proposals are underway to genetically engineer livestock to be untroubled by pain – all too common in intensively reared farm animals. The concept treats cattle, pigs and chicken as if they were inanimate objects whose suffering is like a computer program in need of debugging.
Apparently my violent reaction is quite common too, even has a name – it’s known as the ‘yuck factor’, and it’s not an unusual response to those many advances in biotechnology and biomedicine involving cloning, genetic modification and human-animal chimeras. This distaste is often irrational and can be a potential barrier to progress. Progressive thoughts often comes from ignoring such reactions and thinking things through logically instead.
I can see the logic behind Robert’s comments yes – pain-free animals do make sense – but only in a world that has devalued animal life to a point where anything’s acceptable to aid the production of billions of tonnes of cheap meat. A world that no longer cares about the plight of animals but only of how it’s going to feed itself cheaply.
If the choice is between animals bio-engineered not to feel pain or eating less meat, I know what I think is right. But equally well, I know that most people can’t care much about the pain factory-farmed animals endure – otherwise they would not eat their meat. For many in poor nations, they have no choice. But still, surely the human race can’t sink that low?
17 comments
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September 8, 2009 at 7:26 am
elizabethm
My heart sinks reading this. My own response is like yours and my passionate belief is that we should eat less meat and ensure it has been reared in better conditions. Knowing the urge we have to live easily and mindlessly (we as in the human race) and the drive of big business to profit from it, I am pretty sure that if animals can continue to be factory farmed and not suffer pain as the resullt of scientific intervention, that is what will happen. Sometimes I am astonished by how ready we are as a species to play God. I feel a bit despairing about us all this morning! I’ll just go away and do some yoga for half an hour and make some bread and, some would say, stick my head in the sand until I feel better!
September 9, 2009 at 7:59 pm
paula
I know – it is a bit overwhelming at times isn’t it…our lack of compassion, understanding and pure mindlessness. And for what? So we can continue to do more of the same but even better.
I hope the yoga and bread making helped. The beautiful day here certainly has.
September 8, 2009 at 9:28 am
robertz
If it’s such a wonderful idea, why don’t we engineer pain out of human beings? I believe the real problem, which is never debated in mainstream media, is there are too many human beings and our needs require us to manipulate everything around us to keep us well-fed and happy. I feel we’ve ruined the lives of so many other species and don’t see why we should continue to do this. However, I fear a growing population will accelerate industrialisation of food production with more hydroponics, genetic engineering, etc. If only the human race could sensibly and voluntarily control/reduce its population and respect the rest of the living world.
September 9, 2009 at 8:02 pm
paula
Thanks for taking the time to comment robertz. I wholeheartedly agree with the points you’ve made.
September 8, 2009 at 10:48 am
Beadle
I was going to say exactly what Robertz has said in the first sentence above, and what sort of potential horrors could that lead to. Another case of scientists only dealing with the ‘theory’.
September 9, 2009 at 8:09 pm
paula
Yes niks, that and their so called ‘logic and reasonable’ steps forward.
The sheer enormity of what could result from this just doesn’t bear thinking about.
September 8, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Fiona P
Oh my goodness how awful,what a hideous idea.My heart sank at the thought.Hey(on the stupidly flippant side)why not genetically engineer all senses out of everything-I expect that’ll be the next announcement.
What a truely dreadful place our world would be if that ever happened.Brilliant thought-provoking blogg again Paula,I think I’ll go and frazzle myself in the lovely sun we’re going to have tomorrow( Oh please let it be so!!)
September 9, 2009 at 8:16 pm
paula
Well at least the sun did make it…and made us feel a whole load better. Though were not used to its heat methinks!
Absolutely unbelievable…the steps that will be taken, no doubt, to provide us with ‘cheap guilt-free’ (???) food.
September 9, 2009 at 12:27 am
Kari Lonning
Oh Paula … Robert was obviously baiting you. The idea of saving those animals pain is a good one, AND it is probably cheaper than improving the living conditions for those animals … BUT why can’t more people just address the larger problem at hand? Too many people, too much waste, and more to come!
Except for my odd bits of bacon, I ate my first red meat over the weekend. It was caribou, shot in the wild, in northern Canada. It was quite wonderful, but then my host ruined it by showing photos of the hunt and a photo with hunters and their “trophies.” It’s really hard to eat meat without a conscience.
September 9, 2009 at 8:25 pm
paula
Oh yes Robert was baiting me and acting devil’s advocate- he’s a master at it!
Your caribou/hunter experience resonates with me Kari. I would have had the same reaction. But I think that eating meat with a conscience is possibly the best way forward…you see that means at least we think and we’re aware.
September 9, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Rosie at eco-gites
There have been a couple of programmes on the tv recently that caught Simon’s eye (I think I was asleep both times). One was the fact that many British diary cows are now housed entirely indoors, never seeing sunlight or feeling grass underfoot. The other was beef cattle in South America, outdoors admittedly, but in hectare upon hectare of bare, shadeless fields being fed an artificial diet and having to have water sprayed over them in an attempt to keep them cool.
All this for a glas of cheap milk or a cheap burger. No thank you. And no thank you to pain-free animals. How dare anyone think they could do that to an animal?
Rosie x
September 11, 2009 at 7:06 pm
paula
Hi Rosie – how’s your summer been? Successful? Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. I’ve been shamefully bad at managing to over the last few months.
Yes, they have persuaded themselves that housed dairy cows prefer it that way…well, I guess if every ounce of energy goes into producing gallons and gallons of milk, the effort of using any to walk would be extraordinarily debilitating. The majority of dairy cows only last 2-3 lactations now…when I was dairying I had some wonderful stalwarts of 13+ years!
As for those cattle yards…they leave me speechless. I heartily agree with your last sentence.
September 11, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Rosie at eco-gites
We have had a busy summer (of course) – the gite is progressing; sometimes fast, sometimes slow but ever forward. The garden has done pretty well and we have lots of happy, outdoor, naturally-reared animals. It’s me who needs to be pain-free though. Pigs are flippin’ heavy when they stand on your foot and refuse to move!
Rosie x
September 10, 2009 at 11:31 am
Mopsa
It’s a 1984 scenario, an Animal Farm extension, a valium/prozac for the masses solution. Soma for all, free with your school lunch, and double doses with The Sun.
September 11, 2009 at 7:07 pm
paula
Brilliant! You’re on top form…
September 15, 2009 at 6:03 am
Jane
I’ve thought about this a lot. I’m a very ordinary shopper. I usually shop in the supermarket – I “try” to buy UK produce (but don’t always succeed), I buy a mix of organic and non-organic (depending what looks good, or what’s in season), I buy organic free-range eggs (but when all the boxes have gone I buy the ordinary ones and feel guilty). I buy meat occasionally from the supermarket (the odd duck or chicken usually) and then feel guilty as hell when I don’t know exactly how it’s been looked after and what it’s been fed – but then enjoy it when I eat it. Most of my meat comes from the local farm butchers which supplies local lamb, pig and beef – all within 10 miles of the shop. So what do I think about this? well a big part of me says it is definitely wrong and another part of me thinks it will happen…. is probably already happening….and we won’t know. We can all say it is wrong, but that won’t stop it happening in countries near and far that need cheap meat. As with genetically modified foods I hope the pressure on government/Europe is strong enough to keep it away from us (but that doesn’t mean it will stop in other countries). If it is going to happen then we have to make sure it happens in the most controlled and humane way possible. You can’t stop so called progress but you can try to control the way it is implemented.
September 15, 2009 at 3:03 pm
heidi
They want to genetically modify babies to meet specific ideals, like oh…being born male rather than female, so Iam not surprised at all(horrified yes) by this latest from the mad scientists.
What next? Why not just cultivate specific animal parts in a petri dish…Eliminate raising an animal, we can grow a drumstick in a dish!
Sigh…