I dunno — torturing a sentient being to to death for your own amusement is fucked up no matter how you slice it. A calf is about as smart as a cat, has an emotional life, and cares about its family. Eating meat is not necessary for survival; we do it for convenience or entertainment.
The primary difference between a cat and calf in Western culture is that we view one as a pet, and the other as protein on legs. If you subjected a dog to what a veal calf goes through you’d be hauled into a police station.
That article does a great job of further explaining why the practice is cruel, by also showing how the ducks are left in an albeit not as typically cramped, but nonetheless dank, large shed.
The quote seems to make people think it could be ethical, because the prior treatment is slightly better than average?
That seems like quite the false equivalence.