The Ironic Argument for Veganism in "Humane" Animal Agriculture
"Only when we have become non-violent towards all life will we have learned to live well ourselves."
-Cesar Chavez
What Is Animal Welfare?
Animal welfare is a set of legalized standards for animal use designed to prevent unnecessary or excessive harm. In America, the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) protects companion animals, zoo animals, and research animals and provides guidelines for the proper handling of any warm-blooded animal except birds, lab rats and mice, horses not used in research, farmed animals, and animals used to feed other animals.[1, 2]
When it comes to agricultural practices, there is the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. This legislation approves of certain methods of "humane" slaughter of animals through the means of rendering animals unconscious before being killed -- by carbon dioxide gas, captive bolt gun, gunshot, and electrocution -- except in religious slaughter.[3] However, the Act excludes practices for birds and fishes, which, coincidentally, also happen to be the most-slaughtered animals per year, outnumbering all other animals by the billions and trillions, respectively.[2]
Moral Consideration
The argument for animal welfare is that there is a humane way to use animals for food, clothing, research, and other purposes. But by acknowledging that there's a "less bad" way to use animals, we're therefore admitting that animals can indeed feel, and therefore can experience emotions and sensations. By acknowledging that they're worthy of some level of moral consideration, we're admitting that, as much as we may try to deny it, these animals are aware and conscious and sentient. And we, therefore, appear hypocritical by caring about animal welfare yet continuing to buy products that require animal exploitation. If we truly cared about animals as much as we claim, we'd all be vegan.
Marketing
Humanely-produced animal products are nothing but a marketing ploy to keep consumers buying products they'd otherwise reject. By telling their customers that the animals were treated with care and compassion when they were alive and that the animals are slaughtered with utmost respect -- or hiding the fact that all animals used for dairy, eggs, honey, wool, down, etc. are killed during production or once they're no longer profitable enough to permit them to keep breathing -- they're making us feel better about continuing to support their industry. Because consumers are more aware of animal issues today, they're telling us what we want to hear because they know we won't go digging around for the truth behind their lies.
Packaging
When we look at various "humane" animal products, there are certain patterns they generally follow. One, they use language that sounds positive -- organic, humanely raised, free-range, cage-free, grass-fed, wild-caught -- and avoid using terms associated with living animals -- grass-fed beef, grass-fed milk, free-range eggs, humanely raised pork.
Two, the packaging's appearance is designed to look more natural than generic, "inhumane" products. Egg cartons are nearly always cardboard, not that cheap pink styrofoam, and logos are, as can be seen in the photos below, usually green because we associate that color with nature, freshness, and environmentalism. Instead of a cold, industrial feel, the package designs are meant to feel warm, homey, and comforting.
Three, there's almost always imagery of the animals on the packaging, but it's not of the massive sheds in which "cage-free" chickens are confined or milking machines sucking on the scabby udders of dairy cows or pigs being lowered into gas chambers at a slaughterhouse. It's of a lone healthy chicken in a field of grass, of smiling cartoon cows, or of a resolute, silhouetted pig.
The Reality
"Humane slaughter" is the juxtaposition of two antithetical words that create an oxymoron, such as "selfless narcissism." It simply doesn't make sense. To treat someone humanely means to treat them with humanity, to treat them as you'd wish to be treated, to treat them with compassion, but we would never do to other humans what we do to animals.
Some may say that humane husbandry is more about the way the animals are raised, not so much about how they're killed. The "they had a good life with one bad day" argument. However, in truth, there's very little difference between the humane and inhumane treatment of animals because, under the law, they're all considered property. And monstrous agribusinesses don't care about the wellbeing of each individual animal as much as cutting costs and growing profits, particularly when the animals are born with the sole purpose of being killed. When you're born to die, you don't get the right to live.
Life & Death
Some practices considered lawfully humane are: Killing nearly all day-old male chicks in the egg industry because they will not grow fat enough for broiler (meat) production and cannot lay eggs; Killing young animals -- calves, piglets, chicks, etc. -- on farms with blunt force trauma to the head; Separating dairy mothers from their babies within hours of birth and killing male calves immediately or within six months for veal; Castrating, debeaking, dehorning, tail docking, mulesing young animals without anesthetic.
Compassionate Killing
However, irrespective of all of that, when we are forcefully breeding, raising, and killing other sentient creatures, is there really a compassionate way to do it? Could we compassionately enslave another person? Compassionately eat our companion animals? Compassionately use someone else's body who can't defend themselves against us? Compassionately kill someone who doesn't want to die? If we simply switch the word "humane" with "compassionate," these products sound much more sinister.
be conscious, be kind, be vegan
Related posts you may enjoy:
"The Five Factors of Veganism"
"Animal Rights vs. Animal Welfare"
"Proof That Catch-and-Release is a Kill Sport"
"Standard Arguments Against Veganism, Pt. 7"
Sources
[1] Code of Federal Regulations