It is
legal in the UK to cut the throat of animals while they are still conscious,
but only if this is done during religious slaughter (halal/ shechita). It is a
practice that must be banned. It does not belong in any civilised country.
88% of
animals slaughtered in the UK by the halal method are already pre-stunned. It
is therefore only a small minority of Muslims who continue to insist on
slaughter without pre-stunning. In shechita, the Jewish slaughter method, no
animals are pre-stunned, but 10% are given a post-cut stun. All really horrible
stuff.
It is
hardly an extreme or unreasonable demand for the law to require that all
animals be pre-stunned before slaughter. There are certain fundamentalist
religious practices that do not harm any other beings, and for the sake of
freedom, they should not be banned. But there are other religious practices that
cause clear and significant harm to other beings, and these should be banned.
It generally
takes adult cattle 22-40 seconds to lose consciousness after their throats have
been cut. It can take some calves up to 120 seconds to die. This kind of mediaeval
cruelty inflicted on animals is utterly unconscionable.
Just
because something has happened for centuries, does not make it right. Slavery lasted
for centuries. Women were subjugated for centuries. People were burnt as
heretics for centuries. Gay people were oppressed into concealment for
centuries. “Ancient religious traditions, handed down over centuries” supported
all of these outrages. Just because something is an ancient religious
tradition, doesn’t mean it should be allowed to happen in a civilised country.
There are
certain traditional religious practices that are generally accepted as totally
unacceptable and rightly illegal. Stoning people to death and execution for
apostasy are two examples. Saying that a cruel activity must be given special
legal dispensation just because it is demanded by the ancient traditions of a
fundamentalist religion is therefore not a good enough justification. If those
making this claim simply believe that animal suffering does not matter, then
they should be honest enough to state this explicitly.
If banning
unstunned religious slaughter is persecution of religious minorities, then surely
so is not allowing religious minorities to execute apostates and adulterers.
Yes, the latter is worse, and more shocking. But if someone has a special right
to make another being suffer simply because of religious beliefs, this is where
the argument takes us.
Calling
the campaign to ban unstunned religious slaughter “Islamophobic” makes no
sense. 88% of halal slaughter in the UK already involves pre-stunning, so it is
only a small minority of Muslims who insist on the animal being conscious when
killed. That 12% cannot claim to represent all Muslims in the UK. So, if anything,
opposition to it can only be called “Hard-Line-Islam-ophobic”. Criticising the
beliefs and actions of hellfire Baptists does not imply any criticism of
Quakers. It is not “Christophobic.” Furthermore, a “phobia” is an irrational
fear. I fear the cruel suffering inflicted on animals in unstunned religious
slaughter. That is a perfectly rational fear; not a phobia. There is nothing “Islamophobic”
about demanding all animals be pre-stunned before slaughter. In this context, “Islamophobia” is
a lazy term used to silence valid criticism of certain unacceptable aspects of
fundamentalist religion.
It is not
“libertarian” to defend the right to carry out unstunned religious slaughter.
As well as having a right to freedom to do certain things, sentient beings have
a right to freedom from having certain things done to them. Both of these will
be defended by a true libertarian. If animals have a right to protection from
cruel suffering, then this must trump the perceived right of the fundamentalist
to inflict cruel suffering on them. Some fundamentalists think they are
divinely commanded to kill apostates and gay people, and are prevented from
doing so by the law. Here is the precedent that demonstrates religious rights
are not allowed to trump every other right. Why should they be allowed to trump
the standard legal acknowledgment of animal rights?
Some
claim that it is “not our business” to interfere in how other people want to
live their lives, including how they kill animals for meat. Many would have had
the same attitude towards their battered next-door neighbour prior to the 1980s
when domestic abuse and marital rape were still legal. Just because everyone
else, and the law, turn a blind eye now, doesn’t mean it will ever be right, or
forever be legal.
One
journalist recently wrote that the campaign to ban religious slaughter meant
that Britain was set to become a country that prized animals more than Jewish
or Muslim people. But there was a time when heretics were burnt at the stake:
and indeed, in some countries, heretics and apostates are still executed. Cue
the defence against outrage: “This country is set to become one where heretics
are prized more than devout believers.” It is a stupid and vacuous line of
argumentation.
There is
a distinct lack of precise thinking in much of the material that passes for a
defence of unstunned religious slaughter. I have outlined some of it above.
Another bogus counter-argument is that all animal slaughter involves cruelty.
This may well be the case. But that is equivalent to saying that because
someone has been tortured with thumbscrews, it doesn't matter if he is put on the rack as
well. No doubt there is suffering associated with all animal slaughter. But at
least stunning the animal first renders it unconscious to what comes
afterwards.
Then
there is the vacuous counter-argument that the stunning procedures in standard abattoirs
do not always work, and that some animals are slaughtered unstunned there. But
at least the law declares this is illegal, and abattoirs can be inspected,
controlled, and reported when there are contraventions. And the hand of
campaigners against animal cruelty is strengthened by the existence of such
legislation.
Then
there are those who say that ritual slaughter seems to be the most humane way
to kill an animal. As it can take adult cattle 22 to 40 seconds to lose
consciousness after their throats are cut, and as it will take some calves up
to 120 seconds to die, such arguments lack credibility. After all, what human
being faced with his throat being cut would turn down the opportunity to be
electronically stunned first?
Let’s
stand up for suffering victims of religious fundamentalism who do not have a
voice to stand up for themselves.
For more
about religious slaughter without pre-stunning, the RSPCA have produced a comprehensive information sheet.
© Gary
Powell, 2014
