The Greatest Farm Animal Protection Law is Under Attack! | Shmuly Yanklowitz | The Blogs (timesofisrael.com)

While the fight to create sweeping change on the justice issues we care about can sometimes seem hopeless, California’s Prop 12, which prevents animals from being held in “a cruel manner” has been a source of optimism in the realm of animal rights.

“Prop 12 is the strongest farm animal protection law in the United States and possibly in the world,” according to The Human League. “When it goes into full effect on January 1, 2022, it outlaws the use of cages — and stands to free millions of animals from the cruelest forms of confinement.”

However, big agriculture — in this case the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation — has been fighting this law, bringing a case to the U.S. Supreme Court claiming Prop 12 “overstepped its bounds by placing regulations on other states over how they raise their animals.”

For those concerned about animal welfare, there is a great deal at stake with this court case as the battle between impactful lawmaking and the big-agriculture lobby comes to a head.

For me, the matter of preventing animal cruelty is a moral and religious one. Even the Mishnah, the earliest rabbinic text, articulates how badly confined animals want freedom of movement.

“If a man brought his flock into a pen and shut it in properly and it went out and caused damage, he is exempt,” it says in Tractate Bava Kamma, 6:1. “If he had not shut it in properly and it went out and caused damage, he is liable. If the pen was broken through at night, or bandits broke through it, and the flock came out and caused damage, he is not liable. If the bandits brought out the flock, the bandits are liable.”

The assumption here is that animals inherently don’t want to be kept locked up. It goes against their natural state of being. All life yearns for freedom.

Further, according to Karen M. Morin of Bucknell University, the confinement of animals, while a morally distinct problem from human incarceration, shares commonalities with the inhumanity involved in the imprisonment of people. These include:

Emotional and physical harm

Tightly restricted movement

Removal of dignity

Disregard for life

Despite all of the challenges to the protections we try to enact for the liberation of animals and human beings, we must continue to stand up for the abused among us. While I certainly don’t advocate for the end of all prisons, which are sometimes necessary to keep society safe from those who have a history of violence, the mass incarceration prison system absolutely must at least be seriously reformed, through the elimination of a level of confinement that strips people of mobility and is a form of physical and psychological torture.

Central to Kabbalah is the notion that the sparks of God are confined. A particularly grotesque instance of this is the way human souls and animal spirits are often literally trapped in human-made cages. A key takeaway we must learn from the Jewish tradition is our obligation to help free those in need of liberation from narrow places. We are called by Torah values to fight modern-day Pharoah in whatever form he takes.

The Maharal of Prague taught: “Love of all creatures is also love of God; for whoever loves the One, loves all the works that He has made.”

We must work to create a country in which big agriculture does not have the power to overturn animal protections. In the near term, we should educate others on Prop 12 and how much is at stake, so that, regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision, we’ll be prepared to respond with clarity and action.

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder & President of Shamayim: Jewish Animal Advocacy and is the author of 23 books on Jewish Ethics.

Regards Mark

Hidden camera footage captured workers shocking pigs in the face with electric prods and repeatedly hitting and kicking the animals

Two animal rights activists have been given 30-day jail sentences after exposing animal cruelty at a Canadian hog farm. 

Amy Soranno and Nick Schafer entered Excelsior Hog Farm in 2019. They were convicted on one count of break-and-enter and mischief.

Along with activists Roy Sasano and Geoff Regier, Soranna and Schafer were arrested after a mass protest at the farm. Together, they were known as the Excelsior 4, but Regier and Sasano were cleared of their charges. 

Speaking to Plant Based News (PBN), Soranno said that they found pregnant pigs crammed inside metal cages unable to move. They also found dead pigs rotting in pens with other live pigs who were eating their bodies. The dumpsters were full of dead pigs and piglets. 

Cruelty at the farm

The hidden camera footage also captured workers shocking pigs in the face with electric prods, repeatedly hitting and kicking the animals, and cutting off the tails and testicles of screaming piglets with no pain relief.

At the trial, the defense was blocked from showing footage of the animal cruelty at the farm. They were also prevented by the judge from arguing that the hog farm had engaged in unlawful animal abuse. 

“This case shows in stark terms the utter failure of the animal agriculture industry and law enforcement to protect farmed animals from abuse,” said acquitted Excelsior 4 defendant Roy Sasano. 

“The Crown is more interested in criminalizing and jailing nonviolent activists than holding animal abusers accountable. Excelsior Hog Farm has never had to answer for its well-documented criminal animal cruelty.”

A hidden industry

Despite the fact that the majority of the public buys animal products, most are unaware of how they are produced. 

“As it stands right now, the public does not have the right to know what the conditions inside any animal farm in British Columbia looks like,” Schafer told PBN.

“There is a severe lack of transparency within the animal agriculture industry, and they continue to propagate misinformation of quaint, happy, clean farms. We hope that this case has shed some light on exactly what these farms look like and how animals are housed and treated within this industry.

Ag-gag laws, which make it illegal to expose conditions in farms, are being passed in a number of provinces in Canada. British Columbia, where this protest took place, doesn’t have any such legislation, but the activists were prosecuted nevertheless. 

“This demonstrates just how much the animal agriculture industry has to hide, which should be of concern to everyone,” said Sorrano. 

Soranno and Schafter’s sentence will begin on October 21 at the Okanagan Corrections Centre. They are both appealing their convictions. 

Animal Activists Given 30-Day Jail Sentence After Exposing Pig Farm Cruelty (plantbasednews.org)

Regards Mark