Meat Animals, Humane Standards and Other Legal Fictions

Abstract

Law and food are distinct concepts, though the discipline (Law and Food) implies a relationship worthy of study. The conjunction ("and") creates meaning. However, its absence also conveys meaning. For example, "meat animal" suggests that animals can be both meat and animal. This conflation has powerful legal implications. National Meat Association v. Harris (2012) makes chillingly plain the law's indifference to whether a meat animal is alive or dead. This essay examines the way supposedly humane federal practices ignore the systematic brutalization of "food animals" as those animals get processed into marketable flesh. It concludes with some observations about why this legal blindness exists.

Welfarist and Imperial: The Contributions of Anticruelty Laws to Civilizational Discourse

“…148 As David Cassuto argues in his critical appraisal of the judgment, the Court's reading of the HMSA (incorporated, as noted above, into the FMIA) as a guar-antor of "humane" treatment during slaughter is overdetermined. 149 Cassuto cites several weaknesses of the HMSA in protecting animals. He notes that the statute, which was passed in 1906, was meant to regulate slaughterhouses to better ensure the health and safety of the workers, not the animals.…”

“…" 151 Such open-ended language, Cassuto notes, conveys immense discretion and little incentive for the workers to selfregulate in any meaningful way when facing pressures from superiors about minimizing the number of animals not sent to slaughter. 152 Another HMSA provision indicates that all animals must be stunned before slaughter, but Cassuto notes that the intensely demanding pace of slaughter invariably entails that stunning will not be effective in all cases and that some animals will proceed through the process still conscious.…”

“…153 In addition to noting the weaknesses of the regulations as they apply to the animals covered by the HMSA, Cassuto also reminds that the HMSA excludes 98 percent of animals sent to slaughter in the United States from its purview by explicitly excluding birds (and thus chickens) from its "protective" provisions. 154 The Court overlooked all these important elements constituting the reality of slaughter and simply assumed that the FMIA addresses "humane" slaughter. 155 This characterization of one of the statute's purposes was a critical move in favor of the National Meat Association as it enabled the Court to reach the conclusion that the California provisions violate the FMIA's preemption clause by addressing the same subject matter ("humane" slaughter) in a different way.…”

“…154 The Court overlooked all these important elements constituting the reality of slaughter and simply assumed that the FMIA addresses "humane" slaughter. 155 This characterization of one of the statute's purposes was a critical move in favor of the National Meat Association as it enabled the Court to reach the conclusion that the California provisions violate the FMIA's preemption clause by addressing the same subject matter ("humane" slaughter) in a different way. The finding that California Penal Code 599 triggered the FMIA's preemption clause invalidated California's antislaughter regulatory scheme.…”

“…The finding that California Penal Code 599 triggered the FMIA's preemption clause invalidated California's antislaughter regulatory scheme. 156 The Harris judgment is a leading and recent example of judicial laxity in upholding meaningful protective standards for animals and of deference not only to industry arguments about the scope of humane laws but also to the corporate industry norms that anticruelty laws implicitly incorporate into definitions of acceptable and unacceptable animal treatment under these laws. Despite the Court's ability in Church of Lukumi Babalu to spot the hypocrisy in how states define "cruelty" and interpret the meaning of what is necessary and what is not under their anticruelty statutes, the Court is not able to translate its critical acumen there into a judgment that detects the marginal influence of animal welfare laws like HMSA and FMIA in protecting animals.…”