"Is eating meat desirable?" This was the question posed in a debate between representatives from the Georgia Debate Union and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) at the University of Georgia last Monday.

Bruce Friedrich, PETA’s vice president of policy, says "no." While the consumption of meat may be desirable in taste, it is undesirable in the consequences it breeds, said Friedrich. Armed with over a decade of experience as an animal rights activist, Friedrich made the case for total abstinence from meat products.

“Every time you choose to eat meat you’re paying for someone to slit an animal’s throat on your behalf—something most people are not willing to do. Where is the basic integrity in paying other people to do things we can’t do personally?” Friedrich specifically pointed to the treatment of factory farm animals. Factories subject animals to inhumane conditions including close confinement, genetic manipulation, cruel slaughtering methods and other unethical practices such as cutting the beaks of chickens and boiling them while conscious, said Friedrich.

Conceding many of these claims to be true, graduate assistant debate coach Will Mosley-Jenson based his argument on a careful distinction between meat that comes from factory farms and meat raised according to more “ethical” standards. “The argument for meat consumption does not require a defense of the most heinous practices that our opponents will point to,” stressed Mosley-Jenson.

However, Janet Frick, Friedrich’s partner in the debate, dismissed Mosley-Jenson’s distinction between methods of meat production, focusing instead on the ethics of consuming any animal. “We draw an arbitrary line between the animals that we love and the animals that we eat,” says Frick, an associate professor of psychology at UGA.

Mosely-Jenson concentrated on the economic side of meat production and consumption explaining, “Much of the population depends upon meat for survival.” Two million people worldwide rely on livestock for their livelihood, with Georgia alone employing over 40,000 people in the meat industry, said Mosley-Jenson. His debate partner, Josh McLaurin, noted the value of charities such as Heifer International, an organization that donates animals to impoverished communities, referring to the endowment as “an investment that keeps on giving.”

Yet, Friedrich took issue with the environmental consequences of meat production, including the clearing of tropical rainforests to make room for animals and crops that feed them, as well as the pollution caused by meat production. “If you care about the environment and you care about the global poor, you should stop eating meat.”

McLaurin, an international affairs and religion student at UGA, considers Friedman’s proposal that consumers forgo all meat products to be an “over-simplistic, blanket solution,” explaining that “most people turn down rhetoric that is supposed to make you reach a sweeping conclusion.” Likewise, many “trial vegetarians” reject all meat only to “collapse in despair” after two weeks of the restrictive diet, said McLaurin. Rather than advocating extremes and labeling meat consumers as immoral, he argued, PETA representatives should promote more stomachable options such as the consumption of “free range” meat.

Mosley-Jenson suggested consumers make informed decisions about their diets and buy meat from local businesses such as Earth Fare, a supermarket that, he said, offers meat raised in a “sustainable, stress-free environment.”

Reflecting on the debate, Alex Brown, a mathematics student at UGA, appreciated McLaurin’s stance. “I like that the affirmative side didn’t turn their argument into a moral thing. I think if people think of it as ‘I eat meat or I don’t,’ they’re a lot less likely to make good decisions.” The public debate took place in the Tate Student Center at UGA and was hosted by peta2, the campus version of PETA.

Devon Young