What if I control everything about your life
including: what you eat and when; if, and how
you procreate (cows, chickens and pigs are not left
to naturally mate--they are impregnated with the
help of people who often use an apparatus known
as a “rape rack”); when and how your life is to
end; and I slaughter you when I want to. Would
you characterize that process as humane? Is that
scenario acceptable to you? When you uncover all
of the aspects of farming deemed necessary
(and that usually means “allegedly required in order
to make a profit”),you quickly beginto see that though
you may be able to decrease some suffering here and
there, when the entire process is considered in toto,
there’s simply no way to call it humane.

But I know of a “free-range” farm where the
animals run around, have wonderful lives and are
very well cared for. I know this because I get my
meat from them and I’ve visited their farm and
seen it with my own eyes.

This brings up the topic of humane slaughter. At
some smaller farms, such as family-run farms, the
animals do indeed eat their natural diets, aren’t
drugged or mutilated, and run free. Let’s talk
about you again for a moment. Let’s say I treat
you as well as I possibly can while you’re alive,
yet you cannot escape me, I continue to use you
the way I wish to use you, I decide when and how
you will die, and I will eventually kill you when I
feel the moment is right. Let’s say I shoot you in
the head and you barely feel a thing. Is that okay
with you? Of course not; I’ve just ended your
life. Furthermore, is it okay that I’ve taken your
freedom away from you and used your life for my
purposes? Of course not. You have the right to
your life free of use or enslavement by me. But
nonhuman animals don’t have that right, and
animal rights advocates think it’s time for that to
change.

But I believe in animal rights! I’m a vegetarian
and I eat only cagefree eggs and drink only
organic milk!

Many vegetarians like to think that eggs, milk and
cheese somehow involve less subjugation and/or
suffering than other animal products, such as fur or
meat. They like to think that eggs are about as
cruelty-free an animal product as you can get,
especially if they’re cagefree.

And there’s a good reason for that: we’re surrounded
by messages that tell us cage-free products
are humane. Even the Humane Society of the
United States and People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals promote cage-free eggs.

But did you know that no matter where the egg production facility
is located, or what the visible-to-the-public
conditions are, the egg-laying hens come from
the same hatcheries that kill the baby rooster
chicks at only one-day old? Did you know that
hens are generally considered spent by egglaying
facilities at one to two years and are then
killed? And did you know that dairy cows are
artificially inseminated over and over, often via
a “rape rack,” are genetically manipulated to
produce an unnaturally enormous amount of
milk, and are killed by the time they’re six-years
old, when their normal life span is over 20 years?
And that while they’re alive, they are rarely permitted
to nurse their babies (the males and some
females are taken away from them to be confined,
perhaps elsewhere, and slaughtered as veal)?
How do you feel about milk and eggs now?

As for the farm near your home where
you get your meat and eggs, ask that farmer what
happens to the male chicks and the spent hens.
Ask what happens to the newborn calves. Ask
how the cows are impregnated and how often.
Always question anyone who tells you that some
process involving an animal is humane, and
decide for yourself if it is acceptable to you.