Cows need to lactate when they have calves. They're not unending milk machines. They're like other mammals: they lactate to help their young survive. If you don't take away their calf and beat it to death, it'll drink all that milk and the mother cower won't suffer one bit. So is it just the hormones that make this cruel? What happened to the calf and why isn't that cruel?
Animal cruelty is when you inject them with hormones and cause them mastitis as a justification to increase milk production.