When I eat meat, mamsa, it means, “This animal also will eat me again.” You cannot escape this. “Life for life.” That is the law everywhere. If you have murdered somebody, you must be killed also. So you can escape the so-called state laws, but you cannot escape the laws of the material nature.

From Srila Prabhupada’s lecture on Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.9.52 — Vrndavana, April 7, 1976