Why is the Biden Administration helping the ‘pork’ industry maintain its cruel and abusive practices?
The cruelty of the animal agriculture industry is so extreme that the facts are almost unbearable to contemplate. Yet the president of the United States has shamefully taken the wrong side, for no good reason, on an issue that is entirely morally uncomplicated.
NATHAN J. ROBINSON: The Supreme Court recently heard oral argument in a case that will determine whether California will be required to allow meat from tortured pigs to be sold within the state. California passed a ballot initiative in 2018, Proposition 12, that requires pigs and egg-laying hens to be given a certain minimum amount of living space if their products are to be sold within the state of California. The National Pork Producers Council argues that this rule—which requires sows to be given at least 24 square feet of space to live in and to be allowed to turn around, rather than living in “gestation crates”—is burdensome and unconstitutional.
The fact that the factory farming industry thinks such a modest requirement for humane conditions would be an absurd and costly burden tells you a lot about just how bad the conditions are today. Prop 12’s basic requirement is that pigs—sensitive, intelligent, emotionally sophisticated creatures who are currently treated as indistinguishable from machines—not be imprisoned in tiny crates. An industry that cannot satisfy this basic requirement should not exist.
The pork industry has lost its federal legal challenge twice now. Both the district court and the appellate court have tossed out the challenge and rejected the argument that California violated the U.S. Constitution. And yet, appallingly, as the pork industry tries a third time to get the will of the people of California overturned by the federal courts, it has an ally in the Biden administration. The Biden Department of Justice has filed an amicus curiae brief fully supporting the pork producers’ claims and asking the right-wing Supreme Court to invalidate California’s anti-cruelty law.
The Biden administration’s brief might as well have been written by the factory farming industry itself. It favorably cites the industry’s assertions that the standards would actually hurt pigs rather than help them, and tries to undercut California’s claim that pigs crammed in tiny crates pose a risk to human health… Nowhere in the brief does the Biden administration take seriously California’s motivation in wanting to ensure that it is not complicit in mass torture… The Humane Society has produced plenty of counter-evidence against the industry’s claims…
The cruelty of the animal agriculture industry is so extreme that the facts are almost unbearable to contemplate. California, to its credit, has taken a modest step toward improving the status quo. The pork industry is fighting the state to the bitter end. Yet the president of the United States has shamefully taken the wrong side, for no good reason, on an issue that is entirely morally uncomplicated. The animal rights struggle is difficult enough already without the White House putting its weight behind the manipulative and amoral claims of the meat industry. SOURCE…
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