As a vegetarian, personally, I would be happy to eat lab-grown meat. But I certainly know vegetarians who have said they will not do so, because animals must have been harmed early on in the research required to grow the meat. So the idea that it's fine for vegetarians because any particular given piece of lab-grown meat hasn't directly come from an animal is false.

This sounds to have startling similarities to The Player of Games. I wonder if Banks was inspired by this short story?