{"id":365,"date":"2009-09-11T11:53:36","date_gmt":"2009-09-11T11:53:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/pain-free-farming-through-genetic-engineering-yeech.html"},"modified":"2009-09-11T11:53:36","modified_gmt":"2009-09-11T11:53:36","slug":"pain-free-farming-through-genetic-engineering-yeech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/pain-free-farming-through-genetic-engineering-yeech.html","title":{"rendered":"Pain Free Farming Through Genetic Engineering? Yeech."},"content":{"rendered":"

Modern factory farms may soon be
\nraising animals that are “pain free,” and so not able to suffer physically from
\nthe abominable conditions under which they live.  <\/span>So says a story in this week’s New Scientist,<\/i> my favorite
\nscience magazine. (It is not up on the web yet, but a similar older one<\/a> is.)  <\/span>Adam Shriver, a philosopher at
\nWashington University argues we should do this<\/a>.   <\/span>The argument that breeding pain-free
\nanimals will be more humane is a seductive one.  <\/span><\/p>\n

I believe it is also deeply wrong.
 <\/p>\n


\nFactory farms are the reason such a
\ntrait is valuable.  <\/span>They raise
\nanimals under appalling conditions. 
\n<\/span>A growing minority of consumers are refusing to buy from such moral
\nmonsters.  <\/span>But if animals no longer
\nsuffered there, the corporate mind believes, and the mildly sociopathic mind
\nagrees, that there would be no more such arguments against buying their ‘product.’    <\/span>Breeding pain free animals
\nexists to maintain the profitability of the most destructive form of “farming”
\nthat has ever plagued the world. 
\n<\/span>It destroys not only any quality in the lives of animals, it destroys
\nthe land, the water, local farming communities, and the reservoirs of local
\nknowledge that any successful form of agriculture relies on.  <\/span>    <\/span><\/p>\n

Pain free animals would exist solely to
\nassist the perpetuation of an abomination.    <\/span><\/p>\n

It is as if we drugged people with ‘happiness’
\ndrugs so they would not notice the hideous conditions under which they work and
\nlive, and so contribute willingly to the fortunes of those who exploit
\nthem.  <\/span>The South could still
\npractice slavery.  <\/span>We would never
\nneed unions.  <\/span>Or if we fed prison
\npopulations bliss drugs, so they will never become restive.  <\/span>We would not need to spend nearly as
\nmuch on their physical care, or on guards. In both cases the ‘ethical’ approach
\nexists to help us, not them.  <\/span>     <\/span><\/p>\n

Whether through
\ndrugs or by genetically eliminating the capacity to feel pain, these measures
\nexist primarily to help those with the power to impact how care is given to not
\nneed to actually care anymore.  <\/span>The
\nreal drugging would be to the humanity of those who approve. They would become
\nless human than their victims.  <\/span>The
\nparallel is exactly the same.      <\/span><\/p>\n

Developing pain free animals so they
\nwill not suffer under the hideous conditions that are the willing choice of
\nthose who desire them to be pain-free is one of the most amoral goals of the
\namoral catastrophe that is modern corporate America.  <\/span>It spits in the eye of respect and love of the earth and its
\ninhabitants that is a foundation of any Pagan ethic worthy of the name.  <\/span>It also spits in the eye of our
\nhumanity.
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Modern factory farms may soon be raising animals that are “pain free,” and so not able to suffer physically from the abominable conditions under which they live.  So says a story in this week’s New Scientist, my favorite science magazine. (It is not up on the web yet, but a similar older one is.)  Adam…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-science-and-technology"],"yoast_head":"\nPain Free Farming Through Genetic Engineering? Yeech. - A Pagan's Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/pain-free-farming-through-genetic-engineering-yeech.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pain Free Farming Through Genetic Engineering? Yeech. - A Pagan's Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Modern factory farms may soon be raising animals that are “pain free,” and so not able to suffer physically from the abominable conditions under which they live.  So says a story in this week’s New Scientist, my favorite science magazine. (It is not up on the web yet, but a similar older one is.)  Adam…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/pain-free-farming-through-genetic-engineering-yeech.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"A Pagan's Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-09-11T11:53:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gus diZerega\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Pain Free Farming Through Genetic Engineering? Yeech. - A Pagan's Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/pain-free-farming-through-genetic-engineering-yeech.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Pain Free Farming Through Genetic Engineering? Yeech. - A Pagan's Blog","og_description":"Modern factory farms may soon be raising animals that are “pain free,” and so not able to suffer physically from the abominable conditions under which they live.  So says a story in this week’s New Scientist, my favorite science magazine. (It is not up on the web yet, but a similar older one is.)  Adam…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/pain-free-farming-through-genetic-engineering-yeech.html","og_site_name":"A Pagan's Blog","article_published_time":"2009-09-11T11:53:36+00:00","author":"Gus diZerega","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/pain-free-farming-through-genetic-engineering-yeech.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/pain-free-farming-through-genetic-engineering-yeech.html","name":"Pain Free Farming Through Genetic Engineering? Yeech. - A Pagan's Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-09-11T11:53:36+00:00","dateModified":"2009-09-11T11:53:36+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/#\/schema\/person\/d94ab0155d2780a0526af373b5c543f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/pain-free-farming-through-genetic-engineering-yeech.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/pain-free-farming-through-genetic-engineering-yeech.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/pain-free-farming-through-genetic-engineering-yeech.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Pain Free Farming Through Genetic Engineering? Yeech."}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/","name":"A Pagan's Blog","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Gus diZerega","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/#\/schema\/person\/d94ab0155d2780a0526af373b5c543f2","name":"Gus diZerega","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/4f6\/4f6b5a87d91376eaf8d126df301ab8cdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/4f6\/4f6b5a87d91376eaf8d126df301ab8cdx96.jpg","caption":"Gus diZerega"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/author\/gdizerega"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}