Comparing Manitoba beheading to animal rights abuses
Today, I read the news of an animal rights organization comparing the Manitoba beheading to animal rights abuses, as follows :
…. “an innocent victim’s throat” being cut, referring to the slaughter of cows, chickens and pigs on factory farms.
“His struggles and cries are ignored … the man with the knife shows no emotion … the victim is slaughtered and his head cut off … his flesh is eaten,” reads the ad, which is posted on the website.
“If this ad leaves a bad taste in your mouth, please give a thought to what sensitive animals think and feel when they come to the end of their frightening journey and see, hear and smell the slaughterhouse.”
“Like human victims, animals in slaughterhouses experience terror when they are attacked by a knife-wielding assailant,” Lindsay Rajt of PETA said in a news release. “We are challenging everyone who is rightly horrified by this crime to look into their hearts and consider leaving violence off their dinner plates.”
Rajt said the ad was intended to be shocking and is meant to spur people to think about the terror and pain experienced by animals who are raised and killed for food.
What are my thoughts about this ?
First of all, I myself am shocked by the incident of the manslaughter, and in my comparison, I have NO intention of belittling the horrific death of an innocent victim.
To a great extent, I agree with the observation of the animal rights organization (not that I would publish the ad but I still credit PETA for the many other great things they’ve done for animals). There are some similarities, only that the killers at the slaughterhouses are not psychiatric cases; and that the animals are widely conscious and awake and shivering in fear as they await the much dreaded butcher knife or grinding machine.
Animals, no matter how “different from humans” others consider them to be, STILL HAVE FEELINGS OF FEAR & PAIN. In fact, many of their lives are much worse - in factory farms, they live their entire lives in confined cages/ pens, waiting painfully for that day of slaughter. Moreover, many of these animals are thoughtlessly (or worse- intentionally) abused by those who breed them for their products (milk, eggs, foie gras liver and meat.) Don’t take my word for it: read more about the poor treatment of these animals at Factory Farms (Article Factory Farms: Mechanized Madness Videos : Here ) .
Almost all of us have never stepped in a slaughterhouse. With the exception of those with a strong stomach and/or sado-masochistic nature, I suspect many of us will re-think the piece of meat on our plates. I have seen and heard what happens on factory farms . I am no saint, but I’m staying away from meat, eggs and dairy as much as I can.