[jammies]

There is no such thing as "animal rights", which is why the whole PETA world-view is misguided. You cannot have "rights" without consequent duties, and animals do not understand the concept of duty and thus cannot enter into a social contract that includes rights.

There IS, however, such a thing as human responsibility, which dictates that we should not cause unnecessary suffering in animals. This is why banning animal testing for cosmetics is ethical, but banning animal testing for vaccines is not, or why ending the cruelty of foie gras production makes sense, but outlawing hamburger does not.

Humans are animals too, and thus we should feel no more guilty for eating meat than does a fox, and the only place ethics has in the question is to ensure that the meat animal does not suffer unduly. All life is built on death and pain, and the idea that humans can legislate this away and Disneyfy the natural world is absurd; the best we can do is minimize the pain we inevitably cause.

With milk cows, they exist as almost completely human fabrications from hundreds of generations of breeding so that they bear no resemblance to their wild ancestors, and they would not survive without human intervention. We live in symbiosis with these cows where we trade them security from predators and the opportunity to pass on their genes for their milk and meat, and this is no more unethical than any other symbiotic relationship between animals.