Are they saying that as long as the pigs have a bit of straw and a slightly bigger cage it's ok to murder them?
Like saying that as long as those concentration camp inmates had a comfortable bed it was ok to gas them.

if you really care about animal welfare don't buy expensive meat - don't buy meat

It may be progressive to improve the conditions in these death camps but it's the act of killing that murders your own compassion. Secondarily, flesh eating is not environmentally appropriate, so by eating that bacon sandwich (ok I'm salivating) you are also killing a bit of a person. Thirdly it's not healthy so you're even killing a tiny bit of yourself. It's best to go vegetarian and then make a comfortable transition to veganism.
We were driven off our land by the Enclosure Act; much of it it is now used for monoculture flesh production; if we take the land back and go vegan then they won't be able to make us work for them any more. Till all are free; none are free!

the general population aren't about to go vegan though, they may well be up for up for improving the conditions of livestock however

There have been numerous undercover investigations of pig breeding facilities in this country including RSPCA accredited units. These have revealed squalor and terrible suffering both for sows and their babies. Joanne Lumley is being used, unwittingly perhaps, to ease peoples consciences when they eat pig meat. In addition, there is no such thing as humane slaughter.

For the sake of our fellow creatures and our planet, the only compassionate option is to become vegan!

I do a lot of animal rights stalls and we always have people coming up to us and talking about how they eat meat but it's OK because they make sure it's free range and organic. So, great, the animals were looked after a bit better before they were killed (unless you're in an RSPCA freedom food standard farm or others that aren't properly checked).

Fantastic for the animal welfare campaigners. Not so great for the animals when the time comes for the knife to be utilised and not so great for animal RIGHTS campaigners.

Yes, I agree, the majority of people at the moment aren't ready to go vegan just like that and by putting in an extra stepping stone we'll get them going in the right direction - improve welfare conditions and at least it's a start.

However.

People can get stuck there. Let's say our welfare standards were great and almost everyone was buying free range/ organic meat, dairy, eggs, etc. Then you tell people that eating meat/ dairy/ eggs in general is bad, whether the animals were treated nicely before they were killed or not. Some people will be open to that - they have a bit of compassion at least because they were trying when they changed to organic/ free range. So they'll try - maybe going through another stepping stone first and going veggie, then gradually becoming vegan.

But the problem lies with those people who don't get the concept of animal RIGHTS. They think that as long as the animals were treated fine, going vegan or even veggie is just an extreme. Why should they stop eating meat? The animals didn't suffer. They still want to eat meat, all we've achieved is getting the animals a bit more room or some straw to lie on. They're still dying and people may be unwilling to take a further step because they've "already gone this far" for welfare.

So, it's a tough one. Ideally, people would hear our argument that we shouldn't exploit animals in general, for any reason and they would go veggie/ vegan out of compassion and respecting others' lives. I'll keep doing my stalls and vegan promotion. Other people keep exposing meat and dairy and egg farms (even those RSPCA freedom food ones, let's get rid of the myth that they're all lovely and nice) and just keep hoping that we can educate people and that they'll choose to change.

I was recommended a book by a mate recently, somethign along the lines of "Animals, Property and the Law" (I think). He said it brings up the weaknesses in the animal welfare campaign. Hopefully with a few more perspectives on this issue, we can all work out how we want to proceed with our campaigns, where to go with them...

Keep fighting x