Animal rights vs religion

[Gob]

Denmark’s government has brought in a ban on the religious slaughter of animals for the production of halal and kosher meat, after years of campaigning from welfare activists.

The change to the law, announced last week and effective as of yesterday, has been called “anti-Semitism” by Jewish leaders and “a clear interference in religious freedom” by the non-profit group Danish Halal.

European regulations require animals to be stunned before they are slaughtered, but grants exemptions on religious grounds. For meat to be considered kosher under Jewish law or halal under Islamic law, the animal must be conscious when killed.

Yet defending his government’s decision to remove this exemption, the minister for agriculture and food Dan Jørgensen told Denmark’s TV2 that “animal rights come before religion”.

Commenting on the change, Israel’s deputy minister of religious services Rabbi Eli Ben Dahan told the Jewish Daily Forward: “European anti-Semitism is showing its true colours across Europe, and is even intensifying in the government institutions.”

Al Jazeera quoted the monitoring group Danish Halal, which launched a petition against the ban, as saying it was “a clear interference in religious freedom limiting the rights of Muslims and Jews to practice their religion in Denmark”.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Shorely, "Animal rites"?

[rubato]

I'm astonished. Halal or Kosher butchering is not significantly more painful than other practices. The throat is cut and the animal bleeds out in a few seconds. How different is that from a bolt gun?

http://www.wikihow.com/Properly-Slaught ... -Shechitah
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita



yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

Religious slaughter techniques practised by Jews and Muslims are cruel and should be ended, says a scientific assessment from the Government's animal welfare advisers.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 12241.html

The Danish government has introduced a ban on the religious slaughter of animals for the production of kosher and halal meat.

The ban came into effect on Monday (February 17, 2014), and was defended by Agriculture and Food Minister Dan Jørgensen's announcement on Denmark’s TV2 that “animal rights come before religion.”

Three days ago, New Zealand joined a small group of countries in banning ritual slaughter (Sweden, Switzerland, Norway and Iceland are the others).

90 Polish scientists have written a letter to Poland's prime minister saying that kosher and halal slaughtering methods are 'extremely cruel to animals'.

Our position is not dictated by any dislike of religious practices and rituals but based solely on scientific knowledge and moral opposition to extreme forms of cruelty to animals,” reads the letter written by Dr Antoni Amirowicz at the Institute of Nature Conservation, Polish Academy of Sciences and Prof. Jerzy Bańbura of the Department of Experimental Zoology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Lodz.

involving a clean sword strike to the neck.

Practitioners of ritual slaughter say the animal must be alive to facilitate the draining of blood – and that throat slitting is humane.

But the new research suggests otherwise. Dr Craig Johnson and his colleagues at New Zealand's Massey University reproduced the Jewish and Islamic methods of slaughter in calves. The calves were first anaesthetised so although their pain responses could be detected, they wouldn't actually feel anything. They were then subjected to a neck incision. A pain response was detected for up to two minutes following the cut, although calves normally fall unconscious after 10 to 30 seconds.

The team then stunned the calves five seconds after cutting their throats: the pain signal detected by electroencephalography ceased immediately.

Johnson told the New Scientist he thought this work was "the best evidence yet that [ritual slaughter] is painful". However, he observed that the religious community "is adamant animals don't experience any pain so the results might surprise them".

Read more: http://www.theweek.co.uk/politics/19151 ... z2uUN3NpYD

Going to the dentists, would you like your tooth extracted when you are unconscious, or would you prefer to have it pulled out in the medieval traditional way, with prayers said over you?

[Econoline]

Wouldn't a more apt comparison be "Would you prefer to be executed by firing squad or by guillotine?"

[Gob]

The firing squad, or having your throat slit so that you "painlessly" bleed out, perhaps.

[Daisy]

Hmmmm. I eat halal chicken quite a lot, our local tesco has a halal meat counter (the joys of living in Oldham) and the chicken is half the price of the non halal, it also seems to be of better quality and from larger, older birds. Frankly put all animal slaughter us pretty barbaric. Does an animal suffer more or less having its throat cut without being stunned? Possibly, but in the end it's still a dead animal, it's not being tortured, it must be healthy with no broken bones and it doesn't get to see others of its kind die before it.