Dutch may ban Kosher/Halal

[tropaka]

well, will ban the slaughter practice, in any case. Wasn't sure this should go under snark, but since we were talking about halal in another thread I thought I'd throw it up here. A law is going through their parliament which would ban kosher/halal slaughter as it makes killing an unstunned animal illegal.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/1 ... ?ref=world

 

now, I know we have a few people here who are farmers/worked on farms, I always thought that cutting the jugular was quicker (and maybe less painful) than having a bolt driven into the skull first (sorry to any squeamish folks)?

 

Is this somehow better for the animals or anti religious?

[GeoBQn]

Will the law also ban hunting animals?

[Constance Vigilance]

I thought the difference was that the bolt is supposed to knock them unconscious immediately, whereas with halal practices they are alive while they bleed to death (which in the case of cows can be 20-90 seconds)?

I know which method I'd prefer. :?

[Deleted03]

I thought the difference was that the bolt is supposed to knock them unconscious immediately, whereas with halal practices they are alive while they bleed to death (which in the case of cows can be 20-90 seconds)?

I know which method I'd prefer. :?

yeah except in some places they have the time to regain consciousness before they're slaughtered. This whole process is horrible and there are not enough controls to check on the practices.

hence I'm happy to be vegetarian or eating only meat sustainably and organically produced

[fakepigtails73]

It's when I read stuff like that that I think that I should have stayed a vegetarian (I was one from 1993 to 2001)...

[saraelise]

If they had only targeted halal meat I'm pretty sure they would be able to get away with it. But since it affects kosher meat as well, I don't think this will be allowed to pass.

[gustava]

Back in the day... my grandparents' time.....Grandmother chopped off the heads of chickens with an ax and the critter hopped around the yard enthralling us little suburban dwellers. Hogs were slaughtered in the fall. Rabbit and squirrel went into the pot.

OTOH I cannot eat Bambi, though I have cousins who shoot, dress, and cook deer, and moose in Alaska. I don't object to what they do because they eat what they shoot.

OK, I think that animal killing by humans is...ugh....But on one level I get it. I just can't eat it.

And saraeliese, interesting point.

[GeoBQn]

If they had only targeted halal meat I'm pretty sure they would be able to get away with it. But since it affects kosher meat as well, I don't think this will be allowed to pass.

Both kosher and halal slaughter are currently banned in Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland.

[saraelise]

Both kosher and halal slaughter are currently banned in Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland.

Yes, but I'm pretty sure that the original intent was to ban halal meat, not kosher. Concidering Geert Wilder's wildly right-leaning and islamphobic (sp?) leanings and his massive influence. But as you say it's happening all over Europe and kosher is getting affected in the process, but it's not what's being targeted.

Do I make sense? I'm not hating on the Netherlands, I'm pretty sure this could happen in Denmark (where I'm from) if the last administration had been in charge. But no European politician would ever go sign off on legislation targeted at Judaism the way they will in regards to Islam.

[Constance Vigilance]

What do people who only eat halal or kosher meat do in countries where it is banned? Can they import it as long as it is not made in the country?

[Kitten]

eating only meat sustainably and organically produced

Just a point to quibble on - how meat animals are raised has nothing to do with how they are killed.

Most kosher/halal butchers would claim that their method of slaughtering is. in fact, more humane, because of the many proscriptions they must observe. To whit, the knife must be extremely sharp, and not serrated. The butcher cannot press or stab the knife into the animal, and s/he cannot pause during the incision. Many commercial kosher slaughterhouses use a device that constrains the animal and then turns it on its back to expose the throat. If you've ever seen the movie Temple Grandin, or read her books, you'll know that constraining an animal almost always calms it.

Slaughtering is not a nice, easy process, no matter how you do it. Stun guns, just like Tasers, may work imperfectly, leading to an animal that is conscious or semi-conscious while being hung upside down before its throat is cut.

The bleeding out leads to rapid loss of consciousness and then death. That's why hemorrhage is so dangerous in a medical situation - you may literally only have moments to save someone's life. Most people who have endured a traumatic injury resulting in hemorrhage report that there is little pain after the intial injury. A common memory is a feeling of growing cold and faint.

I'm not gonna pretend that killing animals doesn't traumatize them. But I don't think there's all that much difference to the animals based on the method used.

[pomology]

Nice, taking a page out of 1930s Poland and Nazi Germany. Now that's exactly what a progressive country should want to do.

Honestly, I think there will always be quibbling over what constitutes the most humane way to kill animals and unless killing of animals is outlawed entirely, outlawing shechita and Muslim slaughter methods is anti-Semitic and Islamaphobic. But, as you can tell from the first line of my post, the idea of outlawing shechita triggers specific feelings in me and so maybe I'm being irrational.

[chiccy]

I don't know about Halal, but I do know that proper kosher slaughtering methods are comparatively very humane. (There have been cases in the States and elsewhere of kosher slaughterhouses getting away with murder, but these are almost always in contravention of the Kashrus rules/not following them properly.)

I am pretty sure that a properly-done kosher slaughter is more humane than a conventional slaughter. As others have mentioned, stunning the animal is really not fail-safe, and it often leads to totally inhumane situations. I'm surprised that the Dutch would enact a law like this.

[Daenerys]

If they had only targeted halal meat I'm pretty sure they would be able to get away with it. But since it affects kosher meat as well, I don't think this will be allowed to pass.

It would be difficult to do one without the other as the slaughtering methods are almost identical, since they are both getting their rules from the same abrahmic base. I think it's more the prayers and what is done after that is different.

[Stickers]

The animal rights people pushing for the law probably aren't motivated by any specific religious prejudice but I guess the voters could be. I know there's issues with the growing population of Muslim immigrants in some of the secular European countries.

Despite being a vegetarian/environmentalist for almost 14 years I don't actually know much about slaughtering animals for food.