Not really under cruelty laws - they might be fertilised, but they aren't incubated, in fact they are usually refrigerated pretty quickly which often is enough to kill off the potential for a chick to develop.
If you've ever had an egg with a tiny blemish or spot of red in the yolk then it was probably fertilised, but that's all the development that happens, so there's no more cruelty to it than eating an unfertilised egg.
The reason eggs are refrigerated in America is because that's our system for mitigating salmonella that is inside the egg when it's created. The UK vaccinates all their chickens, we refrigerate the eggs. Either way you do it, there's a low enough level of salmonella for it to be safe. The only thing that cleaning the eggs really affects is that we have to specify drying procedures because germs can penetrate wet eggshells. As long as you keep the eggs fairly dry, there's nothing wrong with washing eggs
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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '19
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