This House would ban the slaughter of animals which have not been stunned first

Slaughter without stunning is painful for the animal. All slaughter methods which do not involve stunning work by bleeding the animal so that it suffers brain-death. This is normally done by cutting the neck. Depending on the species of animal, it can survive for anything between 20 seconds and 2 minutes after this.

Although animals can’t tell us if they are in pain, the best metrics we have – brain activity, eye movement and making sounds – indicate that the animals are in pain during this period.[1] Rendering the animal unconscious stops it feeling pain immediately.

When we have two methods of killing the animal available, it is inhumane to use the more painful one. It follows that we should require stunning.

[1] Federation of Veterinarians of Europe, ‘Slaughter of animals without prior stunning’, FVE Position Paper, FVE/02/104, 2002, http://www.fve.org/news/position_papers/animal_welfare/fve_02_104_slaughter_prior_stunning.pdf

The evidence as to the amount of pain an animal feels is by no means clear. Many of the studies showing the animals suffer have been criticized for not carrying out the slaughter in the way prescribed by religious law. Moreover, other studies claim that cutting the throat in this way stops blood flow to the brain so rapidly that it has the same effect as a stun.

Despite all the evidence that religious slaughter does cause pain, the opposition to this remains scientifically credible, and so we can’t base a government policy on one or the other.

It is important to treat animals as kindly as we can. Not causing harm to others is among the basic human rights. Although these rights cannot be said to apply directly to animals, we should extend them a certain respect as living, sentient beings, and as a minimum we should avoid causing them unnecessary harm.[1] Moreover, taking animal welfare seriously will accustom us to considering the effects of our actions in other contexts, and help us be generally sensitive to cruelty.

Inflicting unnecessary harm on animals is therefore a bad thing. Many governments already have many policies aimed at preventing this. For example, in 2004 the UK passed a law banning hunting with dogs on the grounds that it is cruel.[2] The Council of Europe and through it the European Union already requires stunning, with an exception for religious practices.[3] Removing this exception is the best course for animal welfare.

Killing animals for food may not be philosophically wrong – after all, many species do the same. But if we are going to do so, we should cause as little harm as possible in the process, and this requires using humane slaughter methods.

[1] ‘Why Animal Rights?’, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, 2013, http://www.peta.org.uk/issues/why-animal-rights/

[2] ‘Hunting and the law’, Gov.uk, 4 April 2013, https://www.gov.uk/hunting-and-the-law

[3] The Member States of the Council of Europe, ‘European Convention for the Protection of Animals for Slaughter’, Strasbourg, 10.V.1979, http://ec.europa.eu/food/animal/welfare/references/slaughter/jour137_en.pdf

To worry about animal rights more than human rights is not sensible. When the two are compatible, this is a good thing, but in this case the ban would have the effect of forcing Jews and Muslims to choose between keeping their religion and eating meat. This is a more important concern than animal welfare: although eating meat is not an essential part of life, it is not reasonable to deny it to someone.

It is important for animal rights to be represented in political discourse. The animal rights movement has many supporters. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has 3 million members worldwide.[1] In the UK, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) are both in the 15 wealthiest charities.[2]

The point of democracy is that people decide collectively how they want their state to run. In one poll in the UK, 45% of people backed a ban on shechita.[3] Democracy requires that we take this seriously, and if the animal rights movement wins the debate then we should implement a ban.

[1] ‘Membership Services’, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, accessed 30 May 2013, http://www.peta.org/donate/membership-services/

[2] Rogers, Simon, ‘Britain's top 1,000 charities ranked by donations. Who raises the most money?’, guardian.co.uk, 24 April 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/apr/24/top-1000-charities-donations-britain

[3] Rocker, Simon, ‘Forty five per cent of Britons ready to ban Shechita’, TheJC.com, 27 March 2013, http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/103895/forty-five-cent-britons-ready-ban-shechita

Doing something democratically doesn’t make it right or fair. No matter how much you care about animal rights, you have no right to force other people to do the same. The fact that you disagree with them doesn’t make them wrong.

We generally accept that the state may control what people do in order to protect society. This proposed ban goes beyond that remit, as religious slaughter of animals does not cause harm to other people. That being the case, it is unjust to stop them.

Meat from animals slaughtered without stunning can turn up anywhere. Some parts of each animal are not used in kosher food, and they are generally sold on the normal market. This means any supermarket product could turn out to have such meat in it. Halal food is even more common, and many places serve halal meat as standard.[1]

So we cannot just consider the religious community: this meat reaches everyone. People with concerns about the way their food is produced would be distressed if they knew they were eating meat which had been inhumanely slaughtered. The fact that they don’t actually know is neither here nor there – we should bear in mind their ethical positions.

Everyone is eating the meat, so everyone has a say. Banning the production of this meat would remove it from the food chain and help make sure people know what they’re eating.

[1] Fagge, Nick, ‘Halal Britain: Schools and institutions serving up ritually slaughtered meat’, Daily Mail, 25 January 2011,  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1313458/Halal-Britain-Famous-institutions-routinely-serve-public-ritually-slaughtered-meat.html

To successfully remove such meat from the food chain, any ban would have to extend to importing such meat. Under this model, Jews and Muslims would literally be forced to become vegetarian – a radical and discriminatory suggestion which significantly breaches their rights.

Consumers may very well want to be better informed about their meat. But labeling systems have been proposed which would address this concern without a ban. It also needs to be said that many non-religious abattoirs are also inhumane. To be fully ethical, any such labeling system would have to label all the animals where the stun didn’t work, and should also take account of the way the animals were raised and transported. Banning just religious slaughter is not a consistent moral position, and shouldn’t be government policy.

Slaughter without stunning is painful for the animal. All slaughter methods which do not involve stunning work by bleeding the animal so that it suffers brain-death. This is normally done by cutting the neck. Depending on the species of animal, it can survive for anything between 20 seconds and 2 minutes after this.

Although animals can’t tell us if they are in pain, the best metrics we have – brain activity, eye movement and making sounds – indicate that the animals are in pain during this period.[1] Rendering the animal unconscious stops it feeling pain immediately.

When we have two methods of killing the animal available, it is inhumane to use the more painful one. It follows that we should require stunning.

[1] Federation of Veterinarians of Europe, ‘Slaughter of animals without prior stunning’, FVE Position Paper, FVE/02/104, 2002, http://www.fve.org/news/position_papers/animal_welfare/fve_02_104_slaughter_prior_stunning.pdf

The evidence as to the amount of pain an animal feels is by no means clear. Many of the studies showing the animals suffer have been criticized for not carrying out the slaughter in the way prescribed by religious law. Moreover, other studies claim that cutting the throat in this way stops blood flow to the brain so rapidly that it has the same effect as a stun.

Despite all the evidence that religious slaughter does cause pain, the opposition to this remains scientifically credible, and so we can’t base a government policy on one or the other.

It is important to treat animals as kindly as we can. Not causing harm to others is among the basic human rights. Although these rights cannot be said to apply directly to animals, we should extend them a certain respect as living, sentient beings, and as a minimum we should avoid causing them unnecessary harm.[1] Moreover, taking animal welfare seriously will accustom us to considering the effects of our actions in other contexts, and help us be generally sensitive to cruelty.

Inflicting unnecessary harm on animals is therefore a bad thing. Many governments already have many policies aimed at preventing this. For example, in 2004 the UK passed a law banning hunting with dogs on the grounds that it is cruel.[2] The Council of Europe and through it the European Union already requires stunning, with an exception for religious practices.[3] Removing this exception is the best course for animal welfare.

Killing animals for food may not be philosophically wrong – after all, many species do the same. But if we are going to do so, we should cause as little harm as possible in the process, and this requires using humane slaughter methods.

[1] ‘Why Animal Rights?’, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, 2013, http://www.peta.org.uk/issues/why-animal-rights/

[2] ‘Hunting and the law’, Gov.uk, 4 April 2013, https://www.gov.uk/hunting-and-the-law

[3] The Member States of the Council of Europe, ‘European Convention for the Protection of Animals for Slaughter’, Strasbourg, 10.V.1979, http://ec.europa.eu/food/animal/welfare/references/slaughter/jour137_en.pdf

To worry about animal rights more than human rights is not sensible. When the two are compatible, this is a good thing, but in this case the ban would have the effect of forcing Jews and Muslims to choose between keeping their religion and eating meat. This is a more important concern than animal welfare: although eating meat is not an essential part of life, it is not reasonable to deny it to someone.

It is important for animal rights to be represented in political discourse. The animal rights movement has many supporters. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has 3 million members worldwide.[1] In the UK, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) are both in the 15 wealthiest charities.[2]

The point of democracy is that people decide collectively how they want their state to run. In one poll in the UK, 45% of people backed a ban on shechita.[3] Democracy requires that we take this seriously, and if the animal rights movement wins the debate then we should implement a ban.

[1] ‘Membership Services’, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, accessed 30 May 2013, http://www.peta.org/donate/membership-services/

[2] Rogers, Simon, ‘Britain's top 1,000 charities ranked by donations. Who raises the most money?’, guardian.co.uk, 24 April 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/apr/24/top-1000-charities-donations-britain

[3] Rocker, Simon, ‘Forty five per cent of Britons ready to ban Shechita’, TheJC.com, 27 March 2013, http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/103895/forty-five-cent-britons-ready-ban-shechita

Doing something democratically doesn’t make it right or fair. No matter how much you care about animal rights, you have no right to force other people to do the same. The fact that you disagree with them doesn’t make them wrong.

We generally accept that the state may control what people do in order to protect society. This proposed ban goes beyond that remit, as religious slaughter of animals does not cause harm to other people. That being the case, it is unjust to stop them.

Meat from animals slaughtered without stunning can turn up anywhere. Some parts of each animal are not used in kosher food, and they are generally sold on the normal market. This means any supermarket product could turn out to have such meat in it. Halal food is even more common, and many places serve halal meat as standard.[1]

So we cannot just consider the religious community: this meat reaches everyone. People with concerns about the way their food is produced would be distressed if they knew they were eating meat which had been inhumanely slaughtered. The fact that they don’t actually know is neither here nor there – we should bear in mind their ethical positions.

Everyone is eating the meat, so everyone has a say. Banning the production of this meat would remove it from the food chain and help make sure people know what they’re eating.

[1] Fagge, Nick, ‘Halal Britain: Schools and institutions serving up ritually slaughtered meat’, Daily Mail, 25 January 2011,  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1313458/Halal-Britain-Famous-institutions-routinely-serve-public-ritually-slaughtered-meat.html

To successfully remove such meat from the food chain, any ban would have to extend to importing such meat. Under this model, Jews and Muslims would literally be forced to become vegetarian – a radical and discriminatory suggestion which significantly breaches their rights.

Consumers may very well want to be better informed about their meat. But labeling systems have been proposed which would address this concern without a ban. It also needs to be said that many non-religious abattoirs are also inhumane. To be fully ethical, any such labeling system would have to label all the animals where the stun didn’t work, and should also take account of the way the animals were raised and transported. Banning just religious slaughter is not a consistent moral position, and shouldn’t be government policy.

Animal rights are not generally accepted as universal rights in the same way as human rights are. If we want to have a shared society, it is necessary to grant each other certain rights, such as respecting personal autonomy and property. Because we reciprocate, we are able to work as a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts. There are different philosophical theories as to the source of these rights, but the important thing is what they allow us to achieve. It is generally accepted that the right to a religion is one of these rights, as for many people religion is fundamental to their identity – most estimates for the number of religious people in the world are over 80%.[1] In comparison, animal rights are in no way critical to society.

In our debate, freedom of religion is clashing with causing pain to animals. The former, being a human right, should take precedence over the latter, an animal right. Although we would not give blanket consent to all religious practices, this particular practice is one which there is no reason for banning.

[1] ‘Religions’, The World Factbook, 2010 est., https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2122.html

Although we want to protect freedom of religion, it is not as fundamental as other rights. When two rights clash, we have to decide which should take precedence – for example, your freedom of action is limited by my right not to be punched in the face. Further, we will normally resolve clashes so as to first stop physical harm, followed by emotional or other harm. Freedom of religion, though important, comes further down the list.

In this case, the more “fundamental” of the rights in play is the right of the animal to be protected from unnecessary pain. It is more closely linked to reducing suffering, which an appropriate goal for society. So in this particular case, we should put the animals first.

Much of the research which suggests that religious slaughter causes pain is flawed. To show that the method is necessarily painful, you would have to watch a trained person with perfect equipment. However, many studies into slaughter have observed religious slaughter done in a way which doesn’t meet the religious requirements, and so doesn’t tell us anything about the real world. For example, one study of shechita done in New Zealand used a knife which was half the length required by Jewish law, making it more likely to tear the wound and cause pain.[1] These are not trivial details – they materially affect the humaneness of the process.

As well as this, campaigners often conflate different types of slaughter in ways that are not scientifically accurate. Different animals – horses, cattle, sheep, poultry, rabbits etc. – and even different breeds of animals react differently to both the slaughter and the stunning. Before we can assess the applicability of a study we need to know what kind of animal was being used, the length and sharpness of the knife, the precise location of the cut and other details.

The available evidence only shows the unsurprising result that religious slaughter causes pain if done badly, just like any other kind of slaughter. It is sensible to argue for better regulation, but a ban is not supportable.

[1] Regenstein, Joe M., ‘Expert Opinion on Considerations When Evaluating All Types of Slaughter:

Mechanical, Electrical, Gas and Religious Slaughter’, Cornell University, 23 May 2011, http://www.kosjerslachten.nl/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Preliminary-Report-Regenstein-2305111.pdf

Without accepting the premise that the two types of killing cause equal pain and it is only if the slaughter is done badly that there is a problem the slaughter is more likely to be done badly with religious slaughter. Training people to do religious slaughter well is harder than training them to do other kinds of slaughter. In particular, the latter is more mechanized, so as long as the equipment is properly maintained many problems can be avoided. Religious slaughter is much more prone to human error.

It will be much easier to teach people best practice and improve animal welfare if we require them to use the simpler methods, where less training is required. This is a more efficient way of improving animal welfare than studying a myriad of different types of knife etc.

The stunning methods in general use can and do go wrong. Electrical stunning requires the right size of charge, applied to the right place for the right amount of time. If done badly, the stun itself can cause pain, and can even fail completely. In one survey of Bristol abattoirs, not a single one was fully compliant with best-practice. Captive bolt stunning must also be done at a specific point on the animal’s head. A 1990 study found that in as many as 6.6% of cases, cattle had been insufficiently stunned, and 2.6% actually had to be shot again (one reported worst-case involved a cow being shot six times).

Poultry slaughter often takes place on a mechanized production line, which causes serious concerns. Birds are dragged through an electrically charged water bath to stun them, but a 1993 study showed that 13.5% of birds were receiving shocks prior to being stunned – again, causing needless pain. Some birds lift their heads out of the bath, avoiding the stun completely.[1] Other, similar problems are associated with other stunning methods.

Religious slaughter methods ensure that each animal is handled individually, so that it is kept calm, killed quickly and is properly dead. Because of the need to comply with religious law, the overseeing bodies put a large amount of effort into ensuring compliance with best-practice. Requiring them to stun animals actually causes more harm than good.

[1] Stevenson, Peter, ‘Animal Welfare Problems in UK Slaughterhouses’, Compassion in World Farming Trust, July 2001, http://www.ciwf.org.uk/includes/documents/cm_docs/2008/a/animal_welfare_problems_in_uk_slaughterhouses_2001.pdf

Stunning is only unreliable when done badly. All of the objections listed represent cases where best practice was not being followed. It is important to implement stunning properly, but there are plenty of stunning methods which, when carried out properly and carefully, have been shown to be fully effective.

Religious slaughterhouses are not immune to failures either, with the most common reported problem being an insufficiently sharp knife. The same report cited by opposition condemns the religious slaughter of animals and says “when shechita is performed on chickens in Britain, only about half the birds have both their carotid arteries completely severed by the cut” allowing brain activity to continue for up to 349 seconds.[1] Requiring stunning will improve the base line of welfare we are working towards, and we can then start to worry about ensuring compliance

[1] Stevenson, Peter, ‘Animal Welfare Problems in UK Slaughterhouses’, Compassion in World Farming Trust, July 2001, http://www.ciwf.org.uk/includes/documents/cm_docs/2008/a/animal_welfare_problems_in_uk_slaughterhouses_2001.pdf, p.19, 21

Banning religious slaughter will be perceived by religious people as a direct attack on their faith. Historically, religious minorities have been susceptible to persecution, and these groups tend to remain quite sensitive. Often, people seeking to discriminate against a group will jump on the bandwagon of legitimate criticism and turn it into persecution. Religious slaughter has been used in this way in the recent past: a proposed ban in the Netherlands received much support from anti-Muslim groups.[1] This sort of persecution makes minorities less likely to integrate into society and compare values with us, which is exactly what we would like to encourage.

Appearances matter greatly in politics. All too often, the media focuses not on what is actually happening but on how people and politicians are talking about it. When a senior British politician was reported as having called a police officer a “pleb,” the result was outrage over perceived elitism in the government.[2] If a ban on religious slaughter were to be imposed, it is virtually guaranteed that someone or other would make insensitive comments, and this is how the ban would then be reported, as in the example from the Netherlands.

This ban would play into the hands of those seeking to stir hysteria and outrage. Whilst the principle may be correct, the government cannot appear to be siding with such people.

[1] ‘Dutch MPs effectively ban ritual slaughter of animals’, BBC News, 28 June 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13947163

[2] Robinson, Nick, ‘Andrew Mitchell resigns over police comments row’, BBC News, 20 October 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19922026

The government should not be racist, but neither should it be so politically correct as to paralyze itself. Religion is not a blanket defense against things which the country decides it is not prepared to allow. Religious groups must be prepared to engage constructively with those around them, discussing and comparing values – this is intrinsic to “integration into society.” Knee-jerk reactions against any challenge to their way of life completely miss the point, and they must think about our values just as we think about theirs.

It is our responsibility to make sure the debate does not get hijacked by racists, but if we do this sufficiently well we can successfully cast the debate as legitimate criticism rather than oppression.

The animal welfare movement should be tackling more important things. In the UK, only about 3% of cattle, 10% of sheep and 4% of poultry are slaughtered without stunning.[1] Farming and transporting causes the vast majority of the pain in the life of a given animal before it ever arrives at the slaughterhouse. This is a much more important issue, as it affects every animal, not just the small proportion slaughtered without stunning.

From the slaughter to the animal actually dying is normally within 20 seconds, and can be as low as 2 seconds, depending on the species of animal.[2] The distress caused by this in not significant in the grand scheme of things. Given that the animal is being slaughtered, some discomfort is inevitable, but religious slaughter – even if it is more painful than slaughter with stunning – can hardly be described as prolonged or systematic cruelty.

[1] Rhodes, Andrew, ‘Results of the 2011 FSA animal welfare survey in Great Britain’, Food Standards Agency, 22 May 2012,  http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/board/fsa120508.pdf

[2] Grandin, Temple, ‘Welfare During Slaughter without stunning (Kosher or Halal) differences between Sheep and Cattle’, Grandin.com, September 2012, http://www.grandin.com/ritual/welfare.diffs.sheep.cattle.html

The animal welfare movement can tackle whichever problems it wants to. It is absurd for opponents of the movement to try and tell us what our agenda must be, or that we shouldn’t regard this as significant. Moreover, if we kept asking, “why are we spending our time on this,” we would never get anything done at all. It makes sense to pick achievable targets, and a ban on religious slaughter is achievable partly because of the relatively limited nature of the problem.

We can exploit the momentum this gives our movement to make further progress on other issues.