I agree, animals are killed for the express purpose of making meat for sale. No one kills a human to create a cadaver. The cadavers all died naturally. I would not see anything wrong ethically with eating meat from an animal that died naturally. I would not want to do it, though.Peter wrote: Of course the obvious difference between this case and buying meat is the animal is killed for the express purpose that someone would buy it's meat. No one kills people for the express purpose of creating medical cadavers. On the other hand, killing people for any reason is illegal. Similarly, killing an animal for any reason is taught by the Buddha to be unwholesome. It seems to me unnecessary to extend the Buddha's teachings on this matter to include anyone who is in any way even remotely connected to the person doing the actual killing. If no one was willing to kill directly then the entire discussion of vegetarianism becomes moot.
The Buddha considered killing an animal for any reason to be unwholesome. I agree again. I do not propose that meat eating be made illegal as it is for killing humans. I think it is a choice issue. For me, it is a small way to do less killing in this samsara, but each must make their own decision. Killing animals is unwholesome, probably unethical in many instances, but not illegal, that's too far.