Would you eat Anencephaly meat?

Discussion in 'Vegetarian' started by Vegan Joe, Feb 20, 2013.

  1. Vegan Joe

    Vegan Joe Guest

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    Anencephaly is a condition which causes a baby animal to be born without a brain. These animals are blind, deaf, unconscious, and unable to feel pain. When these animals reach maturity they can breed via artificial insemination creating more animals with Anencephaly. Slaughtering these animals wouldn't have the same ethical implications as slaughtering animals with brains.

    Would you consider eating meat if it came from an animal with Anencephaly?
     
  2. odonII

    odonII O

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    Why not?
     
  3. McFuddy

    McFuddy Visitor

    Well if someone is a vegetarian for health reasons the conditions of an animals birth are kind of irrelevant.
     
  4. Manservant Hecubus

    Manservant Hecubus Master of Funk and Evil

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    I don't know if I'd eat them but I know I already wear their by-product as clothes.
     
  5. odonII

    odonII O

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    Perhaps true. I don't think that was the moral dilemma, though.
     
  6. sunfighter

    sunfighter Hip Forums Supporter HipForums Supporter

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    Strange question. I would not partake, because meat is loaded with poisons and tranquilizers, and it's part of a production system that is destroying the land and causing starvation in the Third World. I haven't tasted meat since 1975.
     
  7. drumminmama

    drumminmama Super Moderator Lifetime Supporter

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    One little problem... Without a brain, no heart or lung function, so the animals die moments after birth without life support, if they aren't stillborn.

    So, red herring argument.
     
  8. Burnt

    Burnt Hip Forums Supporter HipForums Supporter

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    This not necessarily, true, Anencephaly also occurs in humans but most due not live long.


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMlVNFpzKNI"]Baby born without brain brain turns 2 - YouTube
     
  9. SpacemanSpiff

    SpacemanSpiff Visitor

    ^ ive seen some way older than 2


    :leaving:
     
  10. drumminmama

    drumminmama Super Moderator Lifetime Supporter

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    Brain stem controls heart and lungs, and I believe digestion. So yes, that is a case of survival. But, the human child had life support.
    That is economically unreasonable for livestock.

    There is a child out on the eastern plains (Strasburg) who was born with part of a brain hemisphere, and I wrote the story in 2003 or so. The boy was 5 then, and the oldest child with the condition.
     
  11. Burnt

    Burnt Hip Forums Supporter HipForums Supporter

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    A completely agree, plus most likely a cow with this condition would have no motor control and would not be able to build up any significant muscle hell it could not even stand up without some sort of implement.
     
  12. Manservant Hecubus

    Manservant Hecubus Master of Funk and Evil

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    Sounds like veal.
     
  13. Duck

    Duck quack. Lifetime Supporter

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    Here's how it would work people.

    1) they would have to get an animal with anencephaly

    This could be a natural occurrence, or since they would have had to isolate the cause of anencephaly they could possibly force an animal to be born anencephalic.

    2) the meat would be raised on machines; with "life-support" keeping the body going, machine fed, theoretically they would even stimulate the muscles electronically

    3) the first one would be a breeder, and they would continue breeding anencephalic animals from the breeders, and raising stock meat as well

    Result: they would have a basically endless supply of mindless meat; so we would have our food stock anencephalics -- and other, more natural animals could just be wild and do their thing and get eaten a lot less - or maybe not at all

    veal tastes good, so I wouldn't have a problem with that..
     
  14. drumminmama

    drumminmama Super Moderator Lifetime Supporter

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    And whatever manipulation a done to ensure anacephaletic animals would jump the species barrier, like TSEs, and human cases would skyrocket.
     
  15. Duck

    Duck quack. Lifetime Supporter

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    Good con. Didn't think of that one.

    Could help the population growth level out?

    Seriously, that'd be pretty horrifying.
     
  16. Mike Suicide

    Mike Suicide Sweet and Tender Hooligan

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    Sounds a lot like the current American population.
     
  17. JerryWobbles

    JerryWobbles Member

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    I wouldn't because....You are what you eat!
     
  18. RooRshack

    RooRshack On Sabbatical

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    Yeah, there's got to be a brain stem.

    But, that doesn't count for much (anything), as far as what makes you conscious.

    Up the ante: would you eat a human baby with no brain? :D

    In a related note, I have a patent to file, I just realized how to raise totally cruelty-free, PETA approved veal, with a tiny bit of genetic engineering.
     
  19. Strawberry_Fields_Fo

    Strawberry_Fields_Fo RN

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    Ok.....

    First of all, anencephaly (in humans, at least, and I assume other mammals as well) is caused by folic acid deficiency--the same thing that causes spina bifida, only it's a more extreme defomity, obviously, and it effects the top of the spinal column instead of the bottom. So, genetics plays no role here and you couldn't "breed" a cow with anencephaly because even if you deprived them of folic acid not every folic acid-deprived cow would have anencephalic babies. They could have spina bifida or any other deformities of the spinal column, or they might even be normal. The deficiency just increases your risk by 50%, it doesn't guarantee it.

    Second, I think this "argument" is a long-winded way of asking "Would you still eat meat if you knew it didn't have a consciousness and couldn't feel pain?" So, maybe debate that hypothetical situation instead of trying to involve actual science where it doesn't hold up. :)
     
  20. RooRshack

    RooRshack On Sabbatical

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    So you look at how it causes it, and then you engineer it to happen.... duh. You don't deprive the cow of niacin, you want it healthy to nurture a fat brainless little thing -- you genetically engineer it to deprive the embryo of niacin.
     

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