Buddhist Beliefs

(2) The Buddhists hold that every creature fears death, and suffers in it (or in the thought of it), and that therefore it is wrong to kill any living thing. On the other side it can be argued that every living thing dies anyway, and that suffering is unavoidable except for trained Buddhists. Does this undermine the case for the Buddhist doctrine of non-injury to living things, or is there still a case?

The Buddhist doctrine of non-injury to living things is, of course, a natural consequence of the emphasis Buddhists place on the virtue of compassion. This is why most Buddhists are vegetarians.

Most of us non-Buddhists, however, are not vegetarians. So we believe, at least implicitly, that it is morally permissible to kill animals
for meat, even though it causes a great deal of suffering to animals. Since this is the prevalent position, let me suggest brief considerations (besides the one listed in the question itself) in favor of the opposing view that it is not morally permissible to kill any living thing (even animals for meat).

Think of the following story I read in a newspaper article a couple of months ago. There was an incident in California, where a man was sent to jail for a few days. He had taken a turtle out of its shell, and bruised it, presumably for his own amusement. Veterinarians placed the poor abused turtle back within its shell, but it was afraid to poke its head out for quite a while. Evidently it felt scared and hurt.

I suppose it is debatable whether the man should have been sent to jail or not, for what he did to the turtle. But there is no debate that what he did to the animal was pretty bad (I suppose, but check what your own heart says), and he shouldn't have done it. But if we do believe this in the case of the turtle, why do we believe it is alright to make cows, pigs, chickens, etc. suffer in factory farms, just for our own culinary pleasure? Isn't there an inconsistency in our beliefs here?

It's not just killing of animals for meat that is bad. The suffering caused to the animals while they are alive often seems worse than death, which could be quick and sweet end to an intolerable life. Mass production and consumption of meat, and cost-efficient solutions to the production of meat result in a great deal of suffering to animals in factory farms. Here is a concrete example:

Veal calves, for example, spend their lives in pens too small to allow them to turn around or even to lie down comfortably—exercise toughens the muscles, which reduces the "quality" of the meat, and besides, allowing the animals adequate living space would be prohibitively expensive.
In these pens the calves cannot perform such basic actions as grooming themselves, which they naturally desire to do, because there is not room for them to twist their heads around. It is clear that the calves miss their mothers, and like human infants they want something to suck: they can be seen trying vainly to suck the sides of their stalls. In order to keep their meat pale and tasty, they are fed a liquid diet deficient in both iron and roughage. Naturally they develop cravings for these things, because they need them. The calf's craving for iron is so strong that, if it is allowed to turn around, it will lick at its own urine, although calves normally find this repugnant. The tiny stall, which prevents the animal from turning, solves this "problem". The craving for roughage is especially strong since without it the animal cannot form a cud to chew. It cannot be given any straw for bedding, since the animal would be driven to eat it, and that would spoil the meat…. (James Rachels in "A Moral Defense of
Vegetarianism")

Are such factory farming practices morally permissible? (Keep in mind also that your meat consumption is causally related to factory faming practices through the law of supply and demand.) What justification(s) can you offer in defense of meat consumption?

Who knows, there could be perfectly good moral justification for your eating meat; you just have to find it.
But here is one consideration which is not a moral justification. You could say, in your defense, that everyone else around you eats meat, so it must be OK. But that is not a moral defense. The institution of slavery in the past had a similar excuse ("other white folks I know own slaves, so it must be OK"). Just because something is a widely accepted practice in society does not automatically mean that it is the morally right thing to do. You have to examine the question whether it is morally right or wrong for yourself, no matter what most other people around you believe or do. As Confucius says in the Analects, "Even if everyone says it's right, you have to investigate the matter for yourself. Even if everyone says it's wrong, you have to investigate the matter for
yourself."

(p.s. I myself am a vegetarian, but don't let that affect your position in any way. I will be grading your paper on the strength of the arguments you bring in support of your position, and not on the basis of whether I agree with your position or not. Even if you take up the Buddhist position you should expect me to find objections against your defense of or argument for the position.)