Agricultural practices that harm animals are unacceptable
(Last updated: 04/21/09 7:42pm)I was happy to see Greg Thon continuing the discussion on animal issues in his letter Learn basics of agriculture before passing judgements (SN 4/17).
However, Thon misrepresents both animal rights campaigns and his own industry.
Although it is true animal rights activists expose the worst abuses — because there is no one else who will — the main issues with animal agriculture are precisely what Thon himself would admit are “standard agricultural practices.”
These practices include burning cows with hot irons, cutting baby pigs’ teeth, amputating their tails, castrating them with scissors and chopping off chickens’ beaks.
All of this is done without anesthesia. Livestock producers defend these practices by saying they have reasons for them. No one is accusing the livestock industry of committing these acts out of sadism — that’s not profitable. They do them because they help the bottom line: They keep their products manageable and in just good enough condition to sell, no matter how painful the brutal procedures might be.
There are no federal laws on the raising and treatment of farmed animals such as pigs, cows and chickens, and therefore no regulation.
If Mr. Thon really cares about the well-being of animals he should, at minimum, support laws to reform and/or abolish these and many other barbaric acts.
For those who find such practices repugnant, you can improve your health, help the environment and stop supporting these practices by switching to a vegetarian diet — at least until the livestock industry proves it actually wants to help animals, rather than opposing any and all regulations that would allow oversight.
To see these practices in the flesh, you can visit sparmsu.org.
Katherine Blake
English senior
Originally Published: 04/21/09 7:26pm
Jake
04/22/09 12:03amZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…….
Dear State News Editorial staff,
Kindly put an end to the he-said/she-said between SPAR/PETA and the intelligent world in your op-ed section. It’s getting stale.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
04/22/09 12:08amWhat I find so funny is SPAR just like it’s parent PeTA are more then willing to talk about the few farms that treat animals poorly. Just like any other industry in this country you are going to have your good and your bad. But to smear an entire industry because a few whack jobs ( yes I said whack jobs) feel the need to force their opinions on everyone. I eat meat and I work in an industry where I sell meat products everyday.
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MSUAlum2001
04/22/09 8:54amThe biggest problem I see with SPAR is they just won’t leave the preaching of becoming a vegetarian out of ANY of their letters or columns. It does nothing but turn off several people, me included, from anything they have to say. If these nut jobs seriously want to change things, they need to look at changing how they get their message across.
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Scott Hartsell
04/22/09 2:13pmKatherine, if you would have read Greg’s article, and actually considered what he said, you would not have sounded so completely idiotic in your rebuttal in today’s paper. If you would educate yourself even just a little bit, you would know that swine farms no longer clip needle teeth on baby pigs, but when they did, there was a reason. See, when baby pigs are born, they have very sharp teeth on the edge of their mouth, which can cut and injure the sows teat.
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re: scott
04/22/09 2:49pm“ …it will make you sound much less ignorant.”
I don’t know it that is possible for Katherine. There are TONS of farms in Northville! QQ
Carnivore
04/22/09 5:16pmAnimals have rights too……. to be eaten! Who cares how we kill them or if it is humane? It’s an animal, it doesn’t know!
More power to the hamburger? Stop the processing of cheese?