Inside the Republican effort to force millions of farm animals back into cages
Decades of progress for animal welfare are potentially at risk.
The world: [Progresses]
Republicans: Not on my watch!
As always, the cruelty is the point.
The fact is, most animals in our food system live under dismal conditions, and the pitifully low bar for their treatment was set in directives from the same industry’s leaders who today are so upset about being vilified. “Forget the pig is an animal—treat him just like a machine in a factory,” recommended Hog Farm Managementin 1976. Two years later, National Hog Farmer advised: “The breeding sow should be thought of, and treated as, a valuable piece of machinery whose function is to pump out baby pigs like a sausage machine.”
And farmers, eager to squeeze every dollar from their crops, complied. Today, nearly 5 million of these smart, social animals (representing over 80 percent of all sows in pork production) are confined to tiny gestation crates—cages so narrow the animals can’t even turn around. They spend their lives lined up like cars in a parking lot, barely able to move an inch and driven insane from the extreme deprivation
This bill, if it passes, applies to much more than just what the just the title says here
The bill would also threaten other farmed animal welfare laws, like California’s and New York City’s prohibitions on the sale of foie gras, a product made by force-feeding ducks and geese.
[...]
The bill is written so broadly that it could threaten some 1,000 other state and local laws and regulations that govern agriculture, from timber to beef to crops, according to Kelley McGill, a regulatory policy fellow at Harvard Law School’s Animal Law and Policy Program
Who's the loser that's downvoted every comment on this post? Please actually argue why we should treat animals even more unconscionably than we already do. I'd like to see how pathetic it is
Most of the comments I'm seeing downvoted are about pushing towards veganism with factually incorrect reasoning or statements.
Nobody is saying they want animals to be treated worse than they already are when they downvote "veganism is better for the environment because false reason here", and especially not when they downvote the people getting rude to them.
I have yet to see one downvoted comment that is simply saying they oppose Republicans on this disgusting political ploy of theirs. Totally different things, my man (or woman).
They're leaning hard into the cartoonishly evil caricature.
Of course they are, they want the vast majority of us in cages as well.
They're called cubicles
Also at their behest.
Ya know it might be time to eat less meat
Can't wait for lab grown meat to become practical and affordable.
If it's about cruelty, it might be time to eat better meat. I eat all local and organic meat and produce. The cows I eat? I know the lives they live before slaughter and I feel no shame in supporting the farms that give them those lives.
All it takes is more people fighting for better meat and the companies will oblige. They'll come up with their own promises of humane treatment (with their own markups, I'm sure) and they will be able to be held to them even if they lie at first.
The real problem isn't eating meat, it's eating McDonalds hamburgers not once caring where they came from or what's in them.
Again, just if it's about cruelty and federal oversight of free range laws. If you just don't want to eat meat, don't eat meat (but watch your A, B12, Iron, Zinc, etc)
States Rights! Amirite?
They'll say anything in the moment to justify the decisions that the corporations paid for. Their positions don't need to be consistent for longer than a few minutes.
Pssh, a few minutes? Trumpy contradicts himself sentence to sentence, and the people cheer.
They found an issue that profits them that undecideds will get behind, is why.
Free Range laws are a complicated and touchy subject in a lot of Blue areas. Eggs more than doubled in price in my state in the last 6 months or so. I'm willing to pay for them because I think Free Range laws are humane, but I'm a couple towns over from a very depressed urban community that really feels the difference when eggs were one of the cheapest nutritional purchases they could buy.
THERE, there's been a lot of grumbling by traditionally blue voters about the Free Range laws. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, empathy ends when it affects their family.
IMO, we needed subsidy or purchase-subsidy of some sort to counteract the cost of Free Range laws, and this might not have happened because it might not have been popular enough. Nonetheless, hopefully they shoot themsleves in the foot with this. They're leaning on the same commerce clause that could eventually lead to a federal Free Range mandate.
If the prices doubled, are you sure that's not due to the bird flu going around? Some producers have had to cull entire barns of birds.
I know chicken farmers and breakfast restaurant owners on a first name basis. It was absolutely, positively the free-range law. I'm not saying no other price influencers could exist, but the market, retail, and wholesale I've seen is all about the free range law.
And most of the ones I Know are torn because "business is business" but they know deep down inside that free-range requirements are reasonable and humane.
It's a very old story, states rights unless the states do something conservatives don't like.
An example was banning slavery. Conservatives didn't like that, so they started a war over it. A war meant to deny the states the right to ban slavery.
Now they want to ban states from bettering the world. I say now, but it's actually always.
Conservatives in state government do the same things to local governments. It's authoritarianism all the way down.
I don't see how this would go anywhere after 303 Creative.
Corporations are people for the purposes of free speech thanks to Citizens United. Congress can't pass a law depriving them of their free speech rights - and animal welfare would definitely fall within the scope.
303 says - among other things - that state or federal law can't compel to to perform an act against your right to free speech.
I think you may be misunderstanding this bill. This bill attempts to gut existing state and local laws (that themselves still are weak)
The EATS Act, short for Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression, was introduced last month by Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) with a companion bill in the House from Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA), and would prohibit state and local governments from setting standards for how agricultural products imported from other states are produced. The bill’s language is not only sweeping, but vague, and some of its potential effects are unclear. For example, it covers the “preharvest” production of agricultural products, but “preharvest” isn’t defined.
Yes.
They're mad because California won a Supreme Court battle that banned importing pork from other states unless the provider can show that the animal was allowed to move freely while being raised.
And since California is a HUGE market, it essentially makes a lot of animal farming.. I won't say cruelty-free, but less-cruel.
Me: Playing Fallout 3 for the first time, thinking that Littlehorn & Associates is just a silly joke based on a biblical deep cut. No one would be that unnaturally petty and evil in the real world.
Republicans: Hold my beer.
go vegan
Just not an option for most people, and not an appealing option for even more than that.
You don't even need to go vegan to have a positive impact.
Personally, I've been buying a lot more meat alternatives from Impossible, Beyond, Gardein, et al. Had to cut out red meat for heart health, but those alternatives quickly grew on me. The environmental and animal welfare benefits are just a bonus.
If by "not an option" you are referring to cost, it turns out that it actually is usually cheaper to eat plant-based diets overall, and real-world spending data agrees with that
It found that in high-income countries:
• Vegan diets were the most affordable and reduced food costs by up to one third.
• Vegetarian diets were a close second.
• Flexitarian diets with low amounts of meat and dairy reduced costs by 14%.
• By contrast, pescatarian diets increased costs by up to 2%.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-11-11-sustainable-eating-cheaper-and-healthier-oxford-study
Compared to meat eaters, results show that “true” vegetarians [in the US] do indeed report lower food expenditures
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800915301488?via%3Dihub
Bloodmouths don't want to hear it. They need to pretend their corpse habit is sustainable and friendly because if any of them actually thought about the animals they're hurting they'd feel bad.
The way to get people on your side (and you know, actually help the animals) is to do pretty much the opposite of what you're doing. Black-and-white thinking ("either you're a vegan, or you're a bloodmouth!") is paradoxically going to drive people away from what you're saying and cause more animals to be harmed.
