Bleeding Cows for Profit
A vegan objection to “cultivated meat”
As most of my regular readers know, I am vegan for ethical reasons. I am convinced that my fellow animals are sentient beings who feel pain and fear, and cannot consent to being exploited for human use. I therefore avoid consuming or otherwise using animal products to the best of my ability, in order to minimize avoidable harm.
I do recognize that it is not practical or possible for everyone on Earth to go vegan. However, I feel that many of the reasons US-Americans give for consuming animal flesh, eggs, and dairy products boil down to excuses or virtue signaling rather than genuine need or hardship.
In that regard, I am dismayed to see some vegan entrepreneurs promoting the exploitation of cows for human profit. The company they’re promoting, Omeat, hooks cows up to blood apheresis machines and extracts plasma from their bodies on a weekly basis. (Omeat refers to this non-consensual process as “donating”.) They then use this plasma to make so-called “humane” and “slaughter-free” meat.
