I'm not a vegetarian, but I thought dairy necessitated pregnancy, and as such went hand in hand with veal production. Is this incorrect? Input from someone with experience in the domain would be helpful.
(I've googled it but the sources primarily seem to be extremely biased).
IME most people, if they look into it, find ethical problems in industrial dairy/beef production. Maybe most don't care or muster discipline enough to change their consumption, but that is different from thinking it's all fine.
> Milk cows are continually raped for the duration of their lives
This is misleading and utter bullshit (no pun intented). By that reasoning, every routine examination at the gynecologist or proctologist would constitute rape.
We have no reason to suspect that a cow feels "raped" during artificial insemination, or anything more than slight physical discomfort.
For which you don't kill the animal.
> with the obvious ethics problems
This may or may not be "obvious" decades or more in the future, but I think people who hold this idea are in the minority at the moment.
> cow methane
Point taken.