I agree with a lot of your points, however, outdoor cats are really bad for local wildlife, so from a purely utilitarian standpoint there’s less animal suffering by keeping them inside. And they’re not slaves, we don’t force them into labor under penalty of death. You could argue for prisoners i suppose.
We fostered some feral kittens and I was worrying about the same stuff, restricting freedom and such, and then there was a big storm w hail and I went down to check on the kittens and they were cozy as hell.
There’s more to it than just deprivation. One of ours is the baby of a feral momma but our lil girl has never seen a hard day in her life, no outside, no shelters. And seeing how much personality she has just melts my heart.
I’m not well versed in this but I was under the assumption that anyone who worked 32 or more hours was eligible for some kind of insurance through their employer, which is why so many people are stuck at 31 hours a week.