By John M. Simpson.<\/p>\n
The New York Times<\/em> recently reported<\/a>\u00a0on an interesting (and unsettling) animal law development in a European Union member country.\u00a0 According to the report, an area of Belgium \u2013 Flanders \u2013 adopted a law that eliminates any religious exception to the otherwise generally applicable animal welfare law requirement that an animal harvested for food be stunned prior to slaughter.\u00a0\u00a0 The law took effect as of the first of the year, and is similar to a measure adopted\u00a0in the Belgian region of Wallonia that will take effect in September.<\/p>\n The theory behind stunning is to ensure that the slaughtering be painless.\u00a0 On its face, this would seem to be a reasonable animal welfare measure.\u00a0 However, as the Times<\/em> noted, a deeper look into the matter raises a disturbing issue.<\/p>\n Both Jewish and Muslim law require that an animal be in perfect health prior to slaughtering.\u00a0 The pertinent religious authorities have interpreted this requirement as precluding stunning prior to slaughter.\u00a0\u00a0 Thus, the measure would basically ban Jewish (kosher) and Muslim (halal) slaughtering methods, pursuant to\u00a0which the animal\u2019s throat is slit, severing vital blood vessels with the animal losing consciousness seconds later.\u00a0 It is asserted by its proponents that\u00a0the method required by religious law\u00a0is humane and\u00a0painless.\u00a0 Apparently, when shechita<\/em> is properly performed, the animal is rendered insensate\u00a0before it can feel the cut.<\/p>\n The Flemish measure was supported by a Belgian animal rights group, Global Action in the Interest of Animals.\u00a0 However, the measure apparently\u00a0originated with an individual described by the\u00a0Times<\/em> as\u00a0a right-wing nationalist.\u00a0 Similar measures reportedly have been supported in other countries by right-wing politicians who are opposed to growing Muslim populations.<\/p>\n When it\u00a0was originally passed in 2017, the president of the European Jewish Congress (EJC) condemned the Flemish measure and\u00a0characterized<\/a> it as follows:<\/p>\n It attacks the very core of our culture and religious practice and our status as equal citizens with equal rights in a democratic society.\u00a0 We call on legislators to step back from the brink of the greatest assault on Jewish religious rights in Belgium since the Nazi occupation of the country in World War Two.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The EJC has\u00a0noted<\/a> further that Flanders is where\u00a0half of Belgium’s Jews live and where the majority of Belgium’s kosher meat facilities are located.<\/p>\n The root of the EJC\u2019s concern appears to stem, not only from\u00a0the current effect of the law on religious liberty, but also from the fact that a similar law was adopted in Nazi Germany in 1933. \u00a0As noted in a recent\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0on European slaughter laws and exceptions\u00a0by the Global Legal Research Center of the Law Library of Congress:<\/p>\n In 1933, Adolf Hitler, shortly after becoming chancellor, banned the slaughter of animals in Germany without prior stunning, which led to an anguished rabbinic debate on whether observant Jews could eat meat slaughtered with prior stunning under these circumstances. The rabbis reached a general consensus that prior stunning was unacceptable even under the extreme situation of Nazi Germany.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The purport of the 1933 Nazi law was obvious.\u00a0 It was part of an overall campaign of oppressive laws and other actions designed to drive all Jews out of Germany.\u00a0 This disturbing historical parallel raises legitimate concerns as to the motivations underlying the Flemish law.<\/p>\n Ironically, current German law provides for a religious exception to the stunning-prior-to-slaughter requirement.\u00a0 Several other European nations (Cyprus, France, Luxembourg and Spain) have similar religious exceptions.\u00a0 Some countries require post-cut stunning (Austria, Estonia, Greece and Latvia) which apparently would accommodate the religious requirements.\u00a0 The two Belgian regions, however, join the group of countries that do not provide for exceptions (Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark and Slovenia).<\/p>\n In the U.S., the federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act covers the slaughtering of food animals in establishments inspected\u00a0by the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).\u00a0 This law requires that slaughtering methods be “humane,” but it also expressly finds “to be humane”\u00a0“slaughtering\u00a0in accordance with\u00a0the ritual requirements of the Jewish faith” or\u00a0in accordance with the requirements of\u00a0other faiths utilizing similar methods.\u00a0 7 U.S.C. \u00a7 1902(b).\u00a0 Thus, U.S. law specifically declares “humane” the very methods that are now banned in Flanders.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Flemish and Walloon measures have been challenged in the Belgian courts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By John M. Simpson. The New York Times recently reported\u00a0on an interesting (and unsettling) animal law development in a European Union member country.\u00a0 According to the report, an area of Belgium \u2013 Flanders \u2013 adopted a law that eliminates any religious exception to the otherwise generally applicable animal welfare law requirement that an animal harvested … <\/p>\n Continue reading “Animal Welfare or Anti-Semitism?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[246,247,132,244,251,5,243,253,252,245,249,113,248],"ppma_author":[697],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-belgium","tag-flanders","tag-fsis","tag-halal","tag-humane-methods-of-slaughter-act","tag-john-simpson","tag-kosher","tag-nazi-germany","tag-shechita","tag-slaughtering-methods","tag-stunning","tag-usda","tag-wallonia"],"authors":[{"term_id":697,"user_id":317,"is_guest":0,"slug":"jmsimpson","display_name":"John M. Simpson","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2018\/06\/simpsonjohn-125x150.jpg","author_category":"","last_name":"Simpson","first_name":"John M.","job_title":"","user_url":"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/johnmsimpson.html","description":"Read John's bio.<\/a>"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}