This is a cross-post from Barrister Blogger
The covert film by Animal Aid of slaughter at the Bowood halal abattoir near Thirsk shows revolting animal cruelty.
Slaughtermen are seen hacking and sawing at the necks of fully conscious sheep, throwing them around, kicking and punching them prior to slaughter; and all this while surrounded by the smell and sight of death in the form of dead sheep and chickens hanging from nearby meat-hooks.
Animal Aid deserves enormous credit for making these disgusting scenes public. Any civilised person, of whatever religion or none, will be horrified to see the film.
It raises the explosive question of whether halal or kosher slaughter should be banned by law. UKIP, in an apparent reversal of its previous policy, has already announced that it will support a ban on all slaughter in which the animal is not first stunned. It is a policy that may well prove popular. Like most UKIP policies I rather doubt that it has been carefully thought out.
Kosher and halal slaughter share several characteristics. Both Judaism and Islam stress that slaughter should be carried out with respect and concern towards the animal. The animal to be killed must be healthy and uninjured. Animals awaiting slaughter should not be permitted to see those that have already been killed. Both religions stress that the knife used to cut the throat should be as sharp and free from imperfections as possible and that the animal should be killed by a single cut to the throat. A Jewish shochetmust be trained for several years before he is authorised to performshechita. Like any other slaughterman he must also be licensed by the secular authorities.
As far as they go, anyone willing to eat meat ought to be happy to endorse these principles. The emphasis placed by both religions on the need to avoid needless cruelty and to treat animals with respect is admirable.
The problem arises because Islamic slaughter sometimes, and Jewish slaughter always, requires the animal to be slaughtered without first stunning it. In “conventional” slaughter pre-stunning, normally using a captive bolt gun or electric tongs, or in the case of poultry an electric “bath”, is a legal requirement. The theory is that if an animal is first stunned it will not then feel pain as its throat is cut.
Since there is a risk that such pre-stunning could kill and would certainly injure the animal, pre-stunning is completely prohibited in shechitaslaughter, and frowned on by some Islamic authorities.
However, the question of banning religious slaughter applies with much greater urgency to Jewish than to Muslim slaughter. Whilst the wretched sheep at the Bowood halal abattoir were not pre-stunned, the overwhelming majority of animals slaughtered for halal meat are: only 2% of cattle, 15% of sheep and goats, and 3% of poultry are not stunned before slaughter. Most Muslims, it would seem, are content with meat killed after stunning. Virtually no observant Jews would be.
So is killing without pre-stunning cruel?
It depends who you ask.
Do read the rest of Matthew’s post here
