• Question: If plants feel pain, do you think it is right to kill plants?

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      Asked by xX_OldmanBamanaboni_Xx to John, Laura, Luke, Rob, Ruth on 16 Jun 2016.
      • Photo: Laura Finney

        Laura Finney answered on 16 Jun 2016:

        I think this would be the same for animals, if they do indeed feel pain then we must kill them in a humane way to minimise it. However, we need to survive and eat, and if we don’t eat anything that does not feel pain, what on earth will we eat?
        I think it comes down to survival, so we must eat something, but we can do it in a nice way. 🙂 Plus I love avocados which are plant based and I don’t want to stop eating them 😉

      • Photo: Ruth Patchett

        Ruth Patchett answered on 16 Jun 2016:

        I agree with Laura it’s unfortunate but we have to eat something. I suppose the question is what is it ethical to kill to eat? Is pain what you judge, intelligence or consciousness? For example would you feel better if they were given pain medication first or is it the act of killing itself that is immoral? Maybe like animals it would be good to make sure they had a good life first by having some sort of equivalent of “free range” for plants?

      • Photo: John Fossey

        John Fossey answered on 16 Jun 2016:

        If pain then chew quickly
        you don’t have to kill a plant to eat it

      • Photo: Luke Williams

        Luke Williams answered on 16 Jun 2016:

        I agree with Laura. If they do feel pain, that only changes our approach to plants and should not stop us using them as we do now. I do not believe that plants have the necessary ability to feel anything, including pain.

      • Photo: Robert Williams

        Robert Williams answered on 16 Jun 2016:

        Plants are known to ‘feel pain’ because when they are attacked by animals that want to eat them they deploy some defences such as exuding toxic or sticky sap.
        It is very extreme view to say that we ‘kill plants’.
        Only sentient animals feel pain.

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