I think the overall suffering and pain of the animal DOES have to be part of the debate. As well as they point of use vs. non use.
For the first part, there are more penalties applied to someone who has tortured a human (whether it be physical and mental) then killed them as opposed to someone just killing someone.
Everyone and everything thing on the planet eventually dies. But when you cause something unneccessary pain, well that's a different story. Not saying that makes it right to kill a person or an animal, but there are a whole range of reasons one might kill that go from self defense to outright cruelty. Governments sanction the killing of other governments citizens, and if you say no you can get in trouble yourself, it's called war.
Killing happens all the time, and the answers to stopping it aren't easy to figure out. Cruelty doesn't have to happen, and should be punished to the fullest extent.
Certainly the reasons behind the killing and the pain the human or animal suffered HAVE to enter into the equation.
Nuking a cat for fun is not the same as eating an animal for food.
The veal argument might be closer because of the way the calves are killed, and I don't personally approve of it, but it's still not the same.
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