[Mb-civic] Un-American about animals - Peter Singer - The Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

Un-American about animals

By Peter Singer  |  August 20, 2005 - The Boston Globe

WHAT COUNTRY has the most advanced animal protection legislation in the 
world? If you guessed the United States, go to the bottom of the class. 
The United States lags far behind all 25 nations of the European Union, 
and most other developed nations as well, such as Switzerland, 
Australia, New Zealand and Canada. To gauge just how far behind the 
United States is, consider these three facts:

Around 10 billion farm animals are killed every year by US meat, egg, 
and dairy industries; the estimated number of animals killed for 
research every year is 20 million to 30 million, a mere 0.3 of that number.

In the United States, there is no federal law governing the welfare of 
animals on the farm. Federal law begins only at the slaughterhouse.

Most states with major animal industries have written into their 
anticruelty laws exemptions for ''common farming practices." If 
something is a common farming practice, it is, according to these 
states, not cruel, and you can't prosecute anyone for doing it.

Together these last two points mean that any common farming practice is 
legal. If you hear farm industry lobbyists trying to tell you that there 
is no problem in the United States because unhappy animals would not be 
productive, ask them how it can be good for a hen to be kept with four 
or five other hens in a cage so small she couldn't stretch her wings 
even if she had the whole cage to herself.

To measure how far ahead other countries are, we can first look at 
British animal protection legislation. British law makes it illegal to 
keep breeding sows in crates that prevent them from walking or turning 
around -- the way in which about four out of every five US sows are 
kept. In Britain, law does not allow veal calves to be denied adequate 
roughage and iron, as is common in the United States to help produce the 
gourmet veal often served in restaurants.

Nevertheless, it is not Britain but Austria that has the most advanced 
animal protection legislation. In May 2004, a proposed law banning the 
chicken ''battery cage" was put to a vote in the Austrian Parliament. It 
passed -- without a single member of Parliament opposing it. Austria has 
banned fur farming and prohibited the use of wild animals in circuses. 
It has also made it illegal to trade in living cats and dogs in stores 
and deems killing an animal for no good reason a criminal offense. Most 
important, every Austrian province must appoint an ''animal lawyer" who 
can initiate court procedures on behalf of animals.

Why are Europeans so far ahead of Americans in protecting animal 
welfare? I doubt that it is because Americans are more tolerant of 
cruelty. In 2002, when the citizens of Florida were given a chance to 
vote on whether sows should be confined for months without ever having 
room to turn around, they voted, by a clear majority, to ban sow crates. 
Most Americans, though, have never had the chance to cast that vote. The 
animal movement in the United States has not succeeded in turning animal 
rights into electoral issues about which voters seek their candidates' 
views.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/08/20/un_american_about_animals/
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