Slaughter

It’s a com­fort­ing fan­ta­sy that “food an­i­mals” die quick­ly and pain­less­ly. But there is no hu­mane way to kill the bil­lions of an­i­mals re­quired to feed a meat-hun­gry hu­man pop­u­la­tion, and it is naïve to sup­pose other­wise.

Slaugh­ter­house work­ers tes­ti­fy that the speed of the killing line means they are of­ten un­able to stun an­i­mals ad­e­qu­ate­ly. Ev­ery year, tens of mil­lions of an­i­mals are ful­ly con­s­cious when their throats are cut and their life blood drains away. Many are able to move, feel and cry out in agony when they en­ter a scald­ing tank to re­move feathers or hair, when their bel­lies are slit, and when dis­mem­ber­ment be­gins.

Iron­i­cal­ly, the stun­n­ing meth­ods may them­selves cause in­tense and lin­ger­ing suf­fer­ing. Many an­i­mals are shot in the head by the cap­tive bolt pis­tol with­out los­ing con­s­cious­ness. Elec­tri­cal­ly stunned an­i­mals can re­main ful­ly con­s­cious but un­able to move or cry out. Con­trolled at­mo­sphere stun­n­ing can cause suf­fo­ca­tion and pan­ic.

An­i­mals do not go pla­cid­ly and un­know­ing­ly to their deaths. Wit­ness­es tell of ter­ror strick­en an­i­mals strain­ing fu­tile­ly to es­cape; an­i­mals whose will to live is as strong as ours.

Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for th­ese atroc­i­ties lies with those who pay for the body parts of slaugh­tered an­i­mals. There is a gentler way to feed our­selves.