Horse != Food
Apr. 16th, 2004 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoI just have to scream somewhere about this.
I understand that it is a cultural issue in part, and I am not going to argue with people in Asia or Europe who want to eat horseflesh. But, I am going to tell them to raise their own.
It is not legal in the United States to slaughter dogs or cats in order to sell their flesh as food. Yet we continue to allow the horse, who has born our burdens and abuse nobly for thousands of years, to come to this terrible end. Horses who were fussed over, petted, spoiled. Who were ridden by children and adults, raced, exhibited in competition, who pulled buggies, wagons, and plows.
In a week or two, just one county away from where I live, a horse slaughter house is expected to open for business. Owned by non-citizens, run by people who have no shame and no souls. There is no market for horses as meat in the United States. The product will be shipped to Asia and Europe, to feed the demand there.
A few years ago, such a plant was proposed for my own county. Citizen anger and petition stopped it. Apparently the residents of DeKalb do not have as much conscience. A bill was placed before the state legislature to outlaw all horse slaughtering in the state, but weak-minded legislators have tabled it because they are afraid the law might curtail a source of income. The tiny minority of greedy people who favor anything that raises money appear to have convinced a few politicians that there is something 'humane' about slaughtering horses for their meat.
Oddly enough, those who favor horse slaughter are opposed to abortion. They consider a human fetus that doesn't even have a brain yet to be more precious than a living, breathing, feeling creature who most certainly has a brain and often has suffered human abuse before being sold into the slaughter house. Horses are not raised for food. They are raised as pets, companions, and servants. Only when they are no longer needed or wanted, then are they betrayed and dumped in the slaughter house to get rid of them.
The horse ranks with the dog as a human companion and helper. Why do we tolerate this? I maintain that it is no different than if we had sold slaves to be slaughtered for consumption by other humans in the time when slavery was permitted. Saying that it will not be Americans who eat the flesh of our companions does not make it any more acceptable.
I understand that it is a cultural issue in part, and I am not going to argue with people in Asia or Europe who want to eat horseflesh. But, I am going to tell them to raise their own.
It is not legal in the United States to slaughter dogs or cats in order to sell their flesh as food. Yet we continue to allow the horse, who has born our burdens and abuse nobly for thousands of years, to come to this terrible end. Horses who were fussed over, petted, spoiled. Who were ridden by children and adults, raced, exhibited in competition, who pulled buggies, wagons, and plows.
In a week or two, just one county away from where I live, a horse slaughter house is expected to open for business. Owned by non-citizens, run by people who have no shame and no souls. There is no market for horses as meat in the United States. The product will be shipped to Asia and Europe, to feed the demand there.
A few years ago, such a plant was proposed for my own county. Citizen anger and petition stopped it. Apparently the residents of DeKalb do not have as much conscience. A bill was placed before the state legislature to outlaw all horse slaughtering in the state, but weak-minded legislators have tabled it because they are afraid the law might curtail a source of income. The tiny minority of greedy people who favor anything that raises money appear to have convinced a few politicians that there is something 'humane' about slaughtering horses for their meat.
Oddly enough, those who favor horse slaughter are opposed to abortion. They consider a human fetus that doesn't even have a brain yet to be more precious than a living, breathing, feeling creature who most certainly has a brain and often has suffered human abuse before being sold into the slaughter house. Horses are not raised for food. They are raised as pets, companions, and servants. Only when they are no longer needed or wanted, then are they betrayed and dumped in the slaughter house to get rid of them.
The horse ranks with the dog as a human companion and helper. Why do we tolerate this? I maintain that it is no different than if we had sold slaves to be slaughtered for consumption by other humans in the time when slavery was permitted. Saying that it will not be Americans who eat the flesh of our companions does not make it any more acceptable.
