I don’t know if anyone is still interested in the vegetarian opinion, but I’ll go ahead and throw it out there. Personally (veg since I was 10), it’s the killing of animals, the whole snuffing out a life thing, which is the deciding factor, not simply poor treatment. If every meat animal were raised in a loving, resort-like environment, with luxury accomodations, gourmet food, and daily massages, I’d be terribly jealous, but still not okay with killing them and eating them. Vatted meat would be an interesting compromise - meat without death? - but I still don’t know how I’d feel about it (although in that instance I think it’s more the squick factor than anything else).
Thank you for sharing your viewpoint. I am still interested, if no one else is.
My husband would have agreed with you, in his vegetarian days. He’s an omnivore now, but his former vegetarianism was based on a desire to avoid eating dead animals. It was spiritual in nature, not precisely ethical - he felt that taking the…(it’s hard to articulate to a secular audience) energy, aura, baggage…of taking animal death into his body was not serving him well. In time, he changed his stance to one of thanksgiving and respect, eating small amounts of meat after prayer to the animal’s spirit, and physically he’s much healthier as a result. (Please don’t think I’m saying vegetarianism is bad or unhealthy - he, as an individual, was a particularly bad vegetarian - a “french fry and Boca burger” vegetarian. He chose to begin eating meat rather than chosing to learn to eat a healthy vegetarian diet.)
So for him at that point in his life, it wouldn’t have mattered if the pig was insensate - the eating of dead flesh was anathema no matter how pleasant the animal’s life was before its death.