I don’t really give a crap what happens to chickens, but when you’re talking about higher order animals like sheep and cows the ritual slaughter methods commonly in used in shechita (jewish slaughter of animals) and dhabia (mulsim slaughter of animals) are I consider now accepted by mainstream scientists to be unquestionably cruel to the animal - effectively it dies through exsanguination, that is to say bleeding to death. This is shown to cause immense anxiety in a conscious animal due to the hypoxia IF THE ANIMAL IS NOT RENDERED SENSELESS BEFOREHAND. This is quite different from the normal practice in secular slaughterhouses where the animal is stunned beforehand.
In almost all civilised countries it is a legal requirement in slaughterhouses to render the animal sensless; however in many of these civilised countries there is ALSO a religious exemption. Quite simply, liberal minded folk are having their minds bent by their two principles of religious “tolerance” and minimising cruelty to animals, and pioritising the former (although fortunately this does seem to be changing country by country in the EU).
Now so far as I’m aware neither Islam nor Judaism mandates meat consumption. So much like both religions contain rules on what you can do with your slaves that are restricted by our more civilised values, I see no reason why both cannot continue to practice their religion while eating salad and beans OR of course they can change their religion to be more civilised which of course is a matter of interpretation - for example there is a minority view in Islam that if the animal is stunned in way in which it could theoretically recover before the blood is taken then things are fine, and I don’t see a reason to have a problem with this.
I say that this animal abuse should be halted immediately. Slaughter should happen according to scientifically endorsed humane standards and religious ideas should have no input whatsoever.
So much of what is done in factory farms to 10 bilion animals a year in America is equal or worse so why only question religious slaughter and why do you exclude chickens? Don’t they feel pain also?
As for humane standards take a look at meatvideo.com and see what is permissible and considered humane.
Interestingly you will see that a large portion of the Halal meat in the UK is pre stunned which as I said is fair enough. The Kosher meat is probably the biggest problem as it seems Jews are more extreme on this issue than Muslims.
Temple Grandin, a leading authority on humane slaughter, says kosher slaughter is humane when done properly.
Kosher slaughter involves cutting the carotid arteries and jugular veins. Talking about the animal being conscious after that kind of sudden, major blood loss reminds me of discussion of the consciousness of a decapitated head–for all practical purposes, it’s lights out.
Right, so you can listen to someone who is most famous for having a condition that is famous for causing difficulty with empathy, or you can listen to a whole committee of unbiased experts who came up with
[QUOTE=Farm Animal Welcfare Committee]
Pain and distress during exsanguination
We have carefully considered the representations we have received which have put forward the view that a neck cut is not painful provided it is a rapid, uninterrupted movement carried out with an extremely sharp knife. It is difficult to measure pain and distress during the slaughter process in an objective scientific manner and subjective indicators, such as behavioural responses and vocalisation, are prevented from being displayed because of the degree of restraint and the severance of the trachea respectively.
By the same token, it is impossible to state with objectivity that an animal would not feel pain and distress following such a procedure.
When a very large transverse incision is made across the neck a number of vital tissues are transected including: skin, muscle, trachea, oesophagus, carotid arteries, jugular veins, major nerve trunks (e.g. vagus and phrenic nerves) plus numerous minor nerves. Such a drastic cut will inevitably trigger a barrage of sensory information to the brain in a sensible (conscious) animal. We are persuaded that such a massive injury would result in very significant pain and distress in the period before insensibility supervenes.
Additionally, on one visit, we observed the slaughterman place his hand into the neck wound of cattle immediately after the cut had been made, presumably to try to ensure the free flow of blood from the severed carotid arteries (see ‘occlusion’ below).
This procedure in itself is, in our view, likely to cause further unnecessary pain and
distress and is also unlikely to achieve its objective.
Recommendation
Where an animal has not been stunned, the OVS must ensure that nothing is
inserted into the neck wound post-cut.
Time to loss of brain responsiveness
Loss of sensibility post-cut can be detected by observing brain function through electroencephalographic methodology - a lack of response indicating certain insensibility or death. The scientific evidence shows that sheep become insensible within 5-7 seconds of the cut (3-7 seconds in goats).** Adult cattle, however, may take between 22 and 40 seconds to become insensible. This period may be extended should occlusion of the carotid arteries take place. Work done on calves has shown a variation in period to insensibility from 10-120 seconds depending on the extent of occlusion of the carotid arteries or ballooning in blood vessels. Furthermore, a separate study of brain response after Shechita slaughter of cattle compared to that after captive-bolt stunning indicated responses for up to 60 seconds in the former and no response in the latter. (The difference in the times to loss of sensibility between the various species is due to anatomical differences in the blood supply to the brain).
**
Occlusion refers to a phenomenon observed in a proportion of cattle, and particularly in calves, when the carotid arteries have been severed transversely. Very rapidly after the cut, the carotids may, by virtue of their elasticity, retract into their own external connective tissue coat. The connective tissue becomes filled with blood, which then clots thereby occluding the flow of blood from the severed arteries by sealing the cut ends. Because the heart is still beating, the blood pressure in the anterior aorta is maintained and hence also in the vertebral artery. This latter vessel supplies the brain and is not severed during the neck cut. Occlusion therefore has the effect of delaying insensibility for a considerable period and therefore increases the time during which an animal may be experiencing severe pain and distress.
Overall, we have looked at slaughter without pre-stunning against the basic
principles set out at the beginning of our report which aim to ensure the welfare of
animals at slaughter (see Paragraph 8). We consider that at least two of these principles – pre-slaughter handling facilities that minimise stress and induction to a period of unconsciousness without distress – are not satisfactorily observed. Given that the exemption from pre-stunning is subject to the requirement that unnecessary suffering is not inflicted, we consider that the Government should take steps to repeal this exemption.
Recommendation
Council considers that slaughter without pre-stunning is unacceptable and that the Government should repeal the current exemption.
[/quote]
In other words, the experts are pretty clear that this stuff is horrific. And that’s if it goes correctly, which it doesn’t necessarily as you can see in practice 199. Funnily enough if this god character existed I’m sure he would have designed the poor calves a bit better.
From a VERY bried skim it seems that sacrifice is needed for that religion, where as here there’s no NEED to slaughter animals in a religious way because as I said people can just eat beans.
But you are also answering a slightly different question. I am not so fussed about what the law currently says, but what about what it ought to say.
(I PERSONALLY think the way the free exercise clause is currently interpreted is very silly but that’s not a discussion I want to get involved in)
What on earth does empathy have to do with coming up with ’ scientifically endorsed humane standards"?
I would imagine that in a discussion about whether an animal is experiencing pain or trauma, a lack of empathy would be a net positive, since that scientist would be focusing entirely on data and not anthropomorphizing the subjects or projecting onto them.
Can you also back up your implication that Temple Grandin is biased, or did you not mean to imply that?
To me, they sound pretty tentative. Their findings are heavy with qualifications “can’t say for sure that it’s not painful,” “inevitably,” “on one occasion,” etc. And it’s not necessarily clear that they’re unbiased. Several members of the FAWC are non-kosher farmers (i.e., competitors) or have career ties to that industry.
Notably, too, the court found that there was significant evidence that that law was motivated by religious hostility rather than animal-welfare concerns.
If you sever the carotid artery the animal is going to be dead very quickly and unconcious even sooner. How is that cruel? Unless you are against the slaughter of animals for food, an entirely valid position, but irrelevant to this debate.
I’m not a religious person. But I do place the rights of human beings (including the right to practice their religion) ahead of the rights of animals (including the right to only be killed in certain ways). It’s not an absolute for me - I can certainly think of issues where I’d put an animal right ahead of a human right - but on this issue I’m coming down on the human side.
I wonder how they were determining what constitutes “a clear reaction,” which seems pretty subjective.
What if there were a belief system practiced by humans that maintains it is immoral to kill animals, or to kill them in that way (ritual slaughter), or to allow/tolerate/permit other people to kill them in that way, thus creating equal and irreconcilable opposing “rights” among humans?
Would the animals count as a tiebreaker in such a case?
Many religious groups oppose abortion, yet is is legal. Many religious groups oppose gay marriage, yet it is gaining traction in more places all the time. Some religious groups insist that it should be illegal to draw cartoons of Mohammed , but it isn’t in this country.
Essentially, a religion is free to dictate policy/belief for its adherents (subject to some restrictions), but not for anyone else.