In a ruling on Wednesday that many hailed as a major victory for animals and consumers, a federal appeals court judge in San Francisco upheld a California law banning the sale of pork products made from “downed” pigs – those too sick or injured to walk or stand on their own before slaughter.
California legislators passed the law in 2008 after the release of a video that revealed heinous abuse of downed cows at Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. in Chino, including kicking, dragging by chains, electric-prodding and ramming cows with forklifts in order to move them onto the kill floor, and upon testimony that meat from such animals is more likely to be diseased. The California law not only prohibits the sale of meat from downed cows, but downed pigs, goats and sheep.
A lower court in Fresno had sided with the National Meat Association, which had sued to bar enforcement of the new law at pig slaughterhouses. The suit cited federal regulations that prohibit the sale of meat from downed cattle, whose immobility could be an indicator of mad cow disease, but not from other downed animals. The regulations cited also prohibit states from imposing requirements on slaughterhouse operations.
Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Alex Kozinski dubbed the lower court’s ruling “Hogwash,” instead finding that California’s restriction on the type of animals that could be slaughtered and sold for human consumption did not amount to regulation of slaughterhouse operations.
Of course, the best way to prevent farmed animals abuse is to ditch pork (and beef, poultry, and fish) by adopting a healthy and humane vegan diet.
