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According to AVMA Guidelines for “Euthanasia of Animals” in the U.S., it’s perfectly “acceptable” and “legal” to slam a piglet’s head against a wall or concrete floor to kill them. That’s right. Workers can grab baby pigs by the legs, swing them against a concrete surface, over and over, and that’s just a fine. Quoting the guidelines: “Manually applied blunt force trauma, when performed correctly, meets the definition of euthanasia, namely causing minimal distress with rapid loss of consciousness leading to death.” Piglets are often killed simply because they don’t grow fast enough, due to inadequate access to their mother’s milk or any other reason. This is but *one* example of the horrific violence and suffering that eating bacon and other animal products involves. How sinister is this? We have literally created a living hell for the most innocent beings on earth, all for products that no one needs. And, if you think the solution is to “fix” or “improve” these types of laws, to make exploiting and killing supposedly more “humane”, then you are living in a fantasy. The laws are not the problem. The problem is that commoditizing and exploiting living, feeling animals *always* and *inherently* involves violence and harm. There’s no way around it. No matter how “local”, “grass-fed”, “farm-raised”, or otherwise humane-washed the label, the animals who are exploited and killed still suffer horribly. There are no laws, rules or enforcement organizations that can ever change that. So, what can we do if we don’t want to be monsters who kill babies and other vulnerable animals? We can boycott this needless violence by living vegan. For all of us with access to basic food options, going vegan is incredibly easy. It also happens to be healthier for us and urgently needed for the environment (with plant-based diets having a fraction of the impact on the planet compared an omnivorous diet). |