Here Are the Legal Loopholes That Allow Farmed Animals to Be Abused and Killed
Historically, many social movements have advanced legal protections for certain marginalized groups by exposing contradictions. If white people should have the freedom to live unchained, so should black people, who are no different in any relevant way. If men should have the power to vote, so should women, who are just as intelligent and competent. And if heterosexual people should have the right to marry, so should gay people, because love is love.
Today, another social movement is asking: If dogs, cats, and certain other nonhuman animals should be granted the right to humane care and treatment, shouldn’t animals raised for food, since they are just as smart, sensitive, and capable of suffering?
Currently, U.S. law allows animals used for food to be routinely abused, mutilated, confined in unsanitary and inhumane conditions, and slaughtered by the billions—abuses that would land the perpetrator in jail if the victims were Fido or Fluffy. There is no sound basis for this double standard. In fact, science confirms what we already know through common sense: Like our four-pawed companions, farmed animals feel pain, love, and joy. They have rich emotional and mental lives, form close familial and social relationships, and enjoy freedom.
The legal exceptions and loopholes below allow certain animals to be mercilessly exploited simply because we label them “food.” In understanding these flaws, we can expose contradictions in our legal system and ultimately make legal progress.
Farmed Animals Have No Real Protections Under Federal Law
The most significant piece of federal animal welfare legislation, the Animal Welfare Act, has a glaring exception. It doesn’t provide an ounce of protection for the more than 9 billion animals raised and killed for food in the United States each year. Enacted in 1966, this law focuses on the treatment of animals used for research, exhibition, and breeding and explicitly excludes those “used or intended for use as food or fiber.”
Imagine if a law meant to protect dogs excluded all canines with tails longer than an inch. The exclusion of farmed animals from the AWA is just as arbitrary and unjust.
The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, enacted in 1958, is hardly better. It requires that livestock be “rendered insensible to pain” before slaughter. The problem? Birds and fish are excluded, meaning that more than 99 percent of animals slaughtered for food receive zero protections under the act.
In practice, this means that after being dumped from crates while still alive and conscious, birds have their fragile legs snapped into moving shackles, their heads dragged through electrified water, and their throats slit. Many enter the scalding feather-removal tanks while still alive. This is so common that the industry calls these birds “redskins,” because their skin becomes bright red when they drown. Conservative USDA estimates suggest that over 1 million birds die this way in U.S. slaughterhouses annually. That’s more chickens than the number of dogs euthanized in shelters across the country each year.
For fish, who many studies indicate are highly sensitive to pain, this lack of protection means that they can be chopped up and skinned alive.
For what limited protection it does afford, the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act does not apply to animals during their time at the farm, only to their brief, tortured moments before slaughter. And multiple investigations and reports have shown that the law is poorly enforced, with countless violations forgiven and no meaningful action taken against the most egregious and repeat offenders.
Birds Are Excluded from the 28-Hour Law
The second federal law that applies to some farmed animals but not others is the 28-Hour Law, which prohibits animals from being transported for more than 28 hours without being unloaded for a minimum of five hours for rest, feeding, and watering.
Once again, chickens and turkeys are excluded, so the overwhelming majority of farmed animals are still exempt from basic protection. Even worse, violations are subject to a maximum fine of only $500, which most producers easily absorb as a “cost of doing business.” This means that many animals are forced to endure all weather extremes without rest, food, or water. Many do not survive.
“Common Farming Exemptions” Allow Abusers to Write the Rules
Although all 50 states now criminalize animal cruelty, most state laws are designed to protect companion animals rather than farmed animals. The vast majority of states exempt “common” or “standard” industry practices from the scope of their animal cruelty laws, effectively sanctioning abuse.
With this loophole, all kinds of torture flourish in factory farms. One form of systemic torture is intensive confinement. From overcrowded sheds to isolating crates, confinement systems deprive animals of natural conditions and behaviors. In the worst of these—battery cages, veal crates, and gestation and farrowing crates—animals can’t even turn around or spread their limbs for months on end.
Another form of torture is routine mutilation. Tail docking, beak searing, castration, and other excruciating mutilations are performed without painkillers in accordance with standard industry practice. At most pig farms, slamming piglets’ heads against the floor, a practice called “thumping,” is a common and accepted way to kill “runts.”
Can you imagine if puppies could legally be kept in cages so small they couldn’t move, had their tails cut off without anesthetic, or were killed by having their heads slammed into the ground? No compassionate person––or modern, just legal system––would permit such cruelty.
At the state level, farmed animals are often only protected by weak, poorly enforced laws aimed at preventing “malicious” or “sadistic” abuse such as merciless beatings. Otherwise, the industries that exploit animals have been given a free pass to write their own rules—and animals are left to pay a heavy price.
The Federal Government Stalls While States Begin to Take Action
Big Ag interests have blocked all attempts to improve federal laws for farmed animals, but 11 states have made progress by banning the extreme confinement of one or more farmed animal species.
Last year 78 percent of Massachusetts voters checked “yes” on a ballot measure to ban battery cages for egg-laying hens, gestation crates for mother pigs, and veal crates for calves. Similar ballot measures have passed in California, Florida, and Arizona, while elected officials have passed laws in Kentucky, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and other states.
But we have a long way to go. While these state laws bring some relief to millions of farmed animals each year, cage-free doesn’t mean cruelty-free.
It’s clear that laws against animal cruelty exist for a purpose: to prevent animal suffering. Farmed animals are not excluded from these laws because they do not suffer, but because their suffering is a byproduct of a process that commodifies their bodies. If not for the might of the industries that profit from their pain, these animals would likely enjoy, at the very least, the same protections as our dogs and cats.
After all, surveys show that the majority of Americans of all ages, genders, and political leanings believe that farmed animals do indeed deserve protection from cruelty.
Along with the questions we must raise about inconsistencies within our legal system, we must also ask ourselves: If animals are the same in all important ways, are we justified in loving one kind while consuming another?
No comments: