"Halal (Islamic Slaughter) and Shechita (Jewish Slaughter) involves not stunning (the animal) either by percussion or electrical current. Their necks are exposed, and their carotid arteries and jugular veins cut with a sharp knife; they die by exsanguination. Or in simple words they are bled till all the blod flows out and the animal die.
Is this legal ? What about the animal rights people ? (I assume it is legal because you keep hearing about Halal meat).
So animal rights changes with the Religion of the person slaughtering it ? Is’nt that mixing religion with law ?
Keep in mind that the blade has to be extremely sharp and clean (i.e., no nicks at all). It’s probably less painful than being hit with a hammer or shocked with electricity.
On the contrary, the purpose of the ritual Jewish slaughter (can’t speak to Islamic practice) is to avoid unneccessary pain to the animal. For this reason the blade must be razor-sharp, producing the kind of surgical cut that causes the least pain and quickest death. Any nick in the blade, which may cause the flesh to painfully tear, or any unncessary delay in the slaughter, renders the meat unfit to eat.
The shochet, the person doing the slaughter, must be a pious person, fully aware of the relevant laws.
The collection of laws known as Tzar Baalei Chayim speak to the treatment of, and forbid cruelty to, animals. SO far as I am aware, Judaism is the only major religion to propound specific rules for the benefit of animals. Hunting for sport is strictly forbidden, for example. Animals must be permitted to rest on the Sabbath, and you may not muzzle an ox that treads the grain, because of the cruelty of making the animal work so close to food he cannot eat. Nor may you yolk an ox an a mule together, out of concern for the greater strain placed on the weaker animal. In fact, the Talumud mandates that a person must feed his animals before he feeds himself.
That said, the Torah claims that God gave man dominion over the Earth and the animals thereon. For this reason, legitimate use of animals is permitted. Animal flesh, if properly and humanely taken, may be eaten, and animal products used in other ways.
If you want to debate whether it’s cruel, andy_fl, there’s always great debates. Let’s see if it’s legal. I’ll go and look. Spreading it around a little culturally, I’ve eaten meat killed this way at Orthodox Easter and anytime in Italian households.
You’re getting into stickier territory here, as I assume this rule relates to ritual sacrifice (i.e., Santeria, Judaism in the Temple days, etc.) rather than food preparation.
Of course, that line gets fuzzier the more you think about it.
el-'Eid, simply meaning ‘festival’, often used simply to refer to the end of Ramadan 'Eid el-Fitr.
Often Muslims do the slaughter themselves, in the community. It is supposed to be done by someone skilled, I may add.
Your opinion. Death is death. A deep clean cut is less painful than a shallow ragged one, to be sure, and it does strike me as likely less painful than many mass slaughter means.
Certainly better end then being pulled down by a pack of predators and eaten while still living. But hey, the natural world is a nasty place.
I’ve been searching for US law without real success. The relevant act is evidently the Humane Handling and Slaughter Enforcement Act (or something like it), but I can’t locate it, probably due to cultural ignorance.
A couple of nonetheless interesting links. The practices obviously are legal, or regarded as so. The USDA has pages which talk of export requirements for halal and kosher products in a way that suggests that they don’t think that this is an issue: see here and here. They also display the following, which I think is a German law on the issue. It states pretty clearly that there are religious-based exceptions to requirements to stun, stated as such, at least in some places:
Do you feel that bleeding to death is a painful way to go? AFAIK, it’s not. It’s probably one of the more peaceful ways to go- the animal essentially falls asleep and never wakes up. At least judging by the effects of blood loss on humans.
At least the religious methods are very strict about the precision of the method. I’ll try to find cites, but I’m pretty sure the “stunning” methods used in non-religious method slaughter houses aren’t well regulated and are not necessarily effective. McDonald’s recently began to implement requirements for better slaughter procedures for its suppliers (because of animal rights advocates) because of the pain that was routinely inflicted by the killing process.
IANASlaughterer, but I’ve heard that stunning animals (at least large ones such as cows) isn’t remarkably effective at reducing their pain. It just makes them drop to the floor, unable to fight back as they bleed to death, not necessarily rendering them unconscious.
Of course, some things that are permitted in Judaism, are forbidden by common law. Slavery is one example. In such cases, the Talmudic principle of dina d’malchusa dina takes over and states that the law of the land is Jewish law as well. Thus, Jews in the U.S. are forbidden to own slaves.
Was there a specific law you were wondering about, happyheathen?
My Opinion, but a very educated one. Please refer to :
Author(s): Gregory, Neville ; Shaw, Frank
Title: Penetrating Captive Bolt Stunning and Exsanguination of Cattle in Abattoirs
Source: Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 3, no. 3 (2000): 215-230
ISSN: 1088-8705
Quote from the article - “Humane slaughter requires that an animal immediately becomes unconscious and does not regain consciousness.”
Its very well established that stunning an animal before slaughter is the humane way to do it. (If you need more cites from published literature, let me know).
My question is why are Jews and Muslims not required to follow the law in this case? Is’nt this religion and state getting mixed up ?
You cannot establish, as a matter of fact, that a particular practice is definitively “humane”, since there are no objective standards for “humane”. I could as lief claim that no animal slaughter is humane, since the very idea of eating the flesh of another once-living creature is inhumane - and I could provide plenty of published cites for this view.
So far as I am concerned, a humane practice begins and ends with ensuring that a creature capable of feeling pain is not subjected to needless pain, consistent with other reasonable strictures imposed by a particular situation. You may disagree, but without an objective standard for “humane”, we will merely be recitiing our opinions to each other.
Fair Enough. But how can lawmakers view Muslims, Jews and Christians separately while making a law? How can a lawmaker say that it is illegal for a Christian to slaughter an animal without stunning but it is alright for a Jew to do so ?
Morality is also subjective. So if you go by your logic, should there be a separate law for Muslims be allowed them to do polygamy ?