“No man shall exercise any Tirranny or Crueltie towards any bruite Creature which are usualie kept for man’s use.” Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1641
Did you know that the Puritans had a code of ethics for the treatment of their animals? Hardly progressive thinkers, they still kept the four legged and winged as worthy of ethical consideration. Imagine that.
I’m reading a book about the history of the animal rights movement called, For the Prevention of Cruelty, by Diane Beers. It traces the history of animal rights and advocacy groups in America. It’s this kind of invisible history I knew nothing about! For instance, there was a robust movement against animal-use for scientific experimentation (vivesection) in the 19th century. It was quite active in England, but the American east also had a thriving movement against these practices.
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (a predecessor to the ASPCA) was started in 1824! They even were successful at getting laws passed, in the lawless 19th century, to counter the most egregious cases of abuse. They could ticket or arrest people for abusive behavior, and got some of the largest transport companies to guarantee adequate water and rest for their horse teams. Horses were treated miserably in urban areas at the time. These groups did some real good…
The movement was propelled by two mid century events: the theories of evolution developed by Charles Darwin, and the abolition of slavery during the civil war. Evolution suggested that animals are our kin, sharing some of our biology, and even some version of our emotional range. The abolition of slavery simply required citizens to consider that those who had no rights previously, now had many of the same rights as the rest of society. Of course, the reality fell far short of the ideal, and treatment of ex-slaves in the Jim Crow south was especially abominable. Rights codified into law, and rights actually available, were distinctly different things. Although emancipation was a far cry short of justice for the millions of victims of slavery, it did challenge Americans to see recipients of ethical consideration as suddenly much more numerous. To animal rights activists, this was pointing in the direction of a society that was becoming more compassionate.
The animal welfare groups imagined a future where the movement of human sympathy, the widening village of our goodwill, was ever expanding. In truth they were less concerned with a recognition of the individuality and inherent worth in our animal cousins, they were more concerned with the issue that was front and center: the prevention of cruelty. It was a step on the road, an important one. One could hardly expect to see another living being as having intrinsic value and innate worth, while subjecting it to the tools of torture.
The book details the ebbs and flows of the movement. An expansion of interest groups and anti-cruelty laws before the Great War, another wave in the roaring 20s, and then stasis during the depression and 2nd World War. The conditions for livestock and animals raised for food steadily worsened despite all these efforts, culminating in the “factory farming” system developed in the 50s and 60s. This is the source of most meat and dairy consumed by Americans today. To be clear, this is not traditional animal husbandry, but a system developed anew to maximize profits and minimize costs for every pound of meat brought to market. The price is subsidized, as Ezra Klein recently put it, by the suffering of its victims.
I want to take a moment here to look at some societal contradictions. In the period post World War II, there have been numerous areas where animal welfare has improved mightily. There has never been a better time to be a pet. It is estimated that Americans spent 109.6 billion dollars on pets in 2021! This is more than Americans spend on fast food, beer, and gambling. The range of products designed to increase the comfort and well being of our pets has exploded in the last 20 years. We have spas where our pets can take vacations, get a mani/pedi, and enjoy boutique snacks. We also kill far fewer unwanted dogs and cats than had been the case at the turn of the century. Spaying and neutering was unheard of then. There is much more certainty today that a dog or cat born is a dog or cat homed.
For wild animals, it has been a mixed bag. Pressure from human encroachment has squeezed viable habitat and left large mammals with slim living spaces and thin corridors for movement. This has caused increasing, and often deadly, interactions with the human world. Even a state of dependency in some species. At the same time, protections for wild animals have steadily increased on the heels of the Endangered Species Acts of the 60s and 70s. Whaling has been banned in all but a few countries. Trapping bans are common in many states, California having finally passed a ban in 2022. Development in areas of sensitive ecosystems, or homes to threatened species, has been highly regulated. In many parts of the US, there have been efforts to re-integrate native species that had been decimated by hunting and development. There are thousands of examples of these efforts coming up short, being interfered with by powerful interests, or being rejected by lawmakers. But the trend lines are clear. American youth are growing up with a greater awareness of the need for stewardship of wild places than preceding generations had.
Parallel to this, the conditions under which most livestock are kept has plummeted. Pens are smaller. Genetic modifications impair movement in order to speed time to market. Routine antibiotic consumption allows sanitary conditions that would have been business killers in the 19th century.
Many states have laws forbidding the filming or factory farm conditions, so it is completely beneath the radar of most Americans. True to the spirit of the original 19th century anti-cruelty pioneers, an important area where meaningful change can happen is in the halls of government. Laws can be passed to insure conditions improve, albeit modestly, for these voiceless victims. Those who subsidize with their lives and well-being, our attachment to cheap meat.
In 2018, California voters went to the polls to vote on Proposition 12, the Farm Animal Confinement Initiative. There were two parts to this proposed law:
establish minimum space requirements based on square feet for calves raised for veal, breeding pigs, and egg-laying hens and
ban the sale of (a) veal from calves, (b) pork from breeding pigs, and (c) eggs from hens when the animals are confined to areas below minimum square-feet requirements.
Some of the practices this statute addresses are things like gestation crates for pigs. These are confinement cages commonly used for sows who will spend their short lives without room to turn around, birthing litter after litter, nursing their piglets through metal bars, until, exhausted, they are sent to slaughter. Many pigs essentially go mad here, damaging their teeth by attempting to chew through the bars. As Yuval Noah Harrari suggested: you can breed in docility to livestock, but you cannot breed out their desire for connection. This is simply a trait of milk bearing mammals. Every instinct in these pig mothers is to bond with their young, a desire cruelly thwarted by a metal box.
California voters approved of Proposition 12 by a whopping 62 percent. This suggested that when given the choice, a strong majority desires better conditions for farm animals, even when that means paying higher prices for meat. The pork and chicken industries spent almost $700,000 in a campaign to remind voters that they would pay more for meat and eggs were the proposition to pass, but voters chose compassion over coins.
Sadly, this just law has been challenged in the courts by states that provide animal products to California. It is being decided by the U.S. Supreme Court now. Arguments were heard in October of 22, and the decision of the Court is expected this summer. The primary argument against Proposition 12 is that the law is forcing a change to farming practices in other states, a situation viewed as in conflict with interstate commerce protections. The Biden administration has argued against the law with this justification. The remarkable thing about these hearings though, is the absence of consideration for the idea that these pigs and chickens have some right to be exempt from overt torture. And what they endure is torture by any reasonable definition of the term. To put some context on that, in California, and many other states, keeping a dog confined in a cage without room to move for extended periods is a crime. You could be sentenced up to one year in jail and/or $20,000 in fines for these behaviors. And yet - a pig, an animal comparable in intelligence, sensitivity and emotional range to a dog, not only CAN be treated thusly, almost all of them are. The hypocrisy is bald, and, apparently, not (yet) worthy of examination by the highest court in the land.
I have to wonder if the founders of the SPCA, nearly 200 years ago, would find it disheartening that after two centuries it is still so controversial to posit that animals are deserving of moral consideration. Even the Puritans would likely be shocked by the practices which are common today. No man shall exercise any Tirranny or Crueltie towards any bruite Creature which are usualie kept for man’s use.
We have failed even this simple test of kindness. For now.
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