"But darling, he doesn't kill the cows. We do by buying them."A woman pays a man to kill another man. He does. She pays him. Who killed? The hitman would not have except that he expected to be paid. The woman, by offering to pay him, induced him. We have the same relationship with our butchers.
Should Slaughterhouse Animals Be Stunned?
Raffi Berg, BBC News Amsterdam
The slaughter of conscious animals was widely abandoned in the 20th Century and is now practiced mainly in the Jewish and Muslim communities.
Consumers increasingly expect animals to be stunned before death -- but would banning other slaughter methods be an unacceptable violation of religious rights?
The sound of pistons and mechanics fills the air as the last calf of the day steps into a holding box.
A device the size of a hand-held drill is brought to the animal's head, a trigger pulled and a four-inch bolt shot into its brain, causing it instantly to collapse. The unconscious calf is hoisted upside down and slaughtered seconds later with a massive cut to its throat, showering the floor with a torrent of crimson blood.
"Killing animals is never friendly," says Paul Meeuwissen, director of the Vitelco abattoir in the central town of s'-Hertogenbosch, "but what we do is done in the most animal-friendly way possible." More
Should Animals Be Slaughtered?
Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS)
That, of course, is not the question. And it does not address this serious issue. The rate of killing, on behalf of salivating meat purchasers and consumers, is going on at more than 1 million animals per day in the US alone.
Killing one animal on our behalf should not be acceptable or tolerated. Yet we tolerate wholesale slaughter. We turn our eyes and will not see just how cruel the living conditions and murder are.
Eating the toxic (germ ridden, poorly fed, hormone injected) byproducts is worse for the body. But when the mind looks and sees what is happening because we want to eat meat, the mind flags at the killing.
Who then would argue to murder domesticated livestock more cruelly rather than less?
Nonviolence (ahimsa), one of our national ideals, goes out the barn door with the animals led onto trucks or cattle cars on a fearful march to the abattoir. Are the butchers and handlers asking, "Should we put them out of their misery?" or is it the corporate factory farmers asking because it would cost a few cents more?
So the answer is easy!
A) Allow animals to live.
B) Raise them in light, air, on soil rather than in dark, foul smelling, closed off pens and cages.
C) When you can no longer do A and B, be kind in every way possible, choosing stunning over the excruciating live torture of conscious slaughter.
Raffi Berg, BBC News Amsterdam
The slaughter of conscious animals was widely abandoned in the 20th Century and is now practiced mainly in the Jewish and Muslim communities.
Consumers increasingly expect animals to be stunned before death -- but would banning other slaughter methods be an unacceptable violation of religious rights?The sound of pistons and mechanics fills the air as the last calf of the day steps into a holding box.
A device the size of a hand-held drill is brought to the animal's head, a trigger pulled and a four-inch bolt shot into its brain, causing it instantly to collapse. The unconscious calf is hoisted upside down and slaughtered seconds later with a massive cut to its throat, showering the floor with a torrent of crimson blood.
"Killing animals is never friendly," says Paul Meeuwissen, director of the Vitelco abattoir in the central town of s'-Hertogenbosch, "but what we do is done in the most animal-friendly way possible." More
Should Animals Be Slaughtered?
Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS)
That, of course, is not the question. And it does not address this serious issue. The rate of killing, on behalf of salivating meat purchasers and consumers, is going on at more than 1 million animals per day in the US alone.Killing one animal on our behalf should not be acceptable or tolerated. Yet we tolerate wholesale slaughter. We turn our eyes and will not see just how cruel the living conditions and murder are.
Eating the toxic (germ ridden, poorly fed, hormone injected) byproducts is worse for the body. But when the mind looks and sees what is happening because we want to eat meat, the mind flags at the killing.Who then would argue to murder domesticated livestock more cruelly rather than less?
Nonviolence (ahimsa), one of our national ideals, goes out the barn door with the animals led onto trucks or cattle cars on a fearful march to the abattoir. Are the butchers and handlers asking, "Should we put them out of their misery?" or is it the corporate factory farmers asking because it would cost a few cents more?
So the answer is easy!
A) Allow animals to live.
B) Raise them in light, air, on soil rather than in dark, foul smelling, closed off pens and cages.
C) When you can no longer do A and B, be kind in every way possible, choosing stunning over the excruciating live torture of conscious slaughter.
